How do you spell "relief"?

Deb & I were hanging out with Emma the other day, getting ready to go somewhere. She was asking us if we had to do something.. can't remember what.. and we said no, we didn't, and she said, "Well, that's a relief!"

Brief silence. She follows up with, "Mommy.. what's a 'relief'?"

And Deb said, "Don't you know? You just used it correctly.."

No, she didn't know.

So we explained it to her, and I summed it up, roughly, "..so, when you're worried about something or scared or something and then you find out that it's not a problem.. that's a 'relief'. When you're worried or scared, a relief is something that makes you feel better."

She thought about that for a minute, standing there in the bathroom, and then you could see it sort of *click* in her head. And her eyes got bright, and she gives me her sideways grin and she says, "Daddy...

...you're a relief!"

And it does not get better than that, now does it? No sir.

..And then we corrected her and sent her to bed without any supper because she had used it in the wrong context. Heart-warming, sure.. but you gotta have standards. Am I right, people?

The End.