Rhyming Timing

This morning I was teaching the kids a new word: douse (to plunge into water, extinguish) which included a lesson on spelling it. I wrote it out for them and in order to help them remember how it was spelled I asked them what other words are spelled like it.

Daniel chimed in that if you changed the "D" to an "M" you would get "mouse". Then Lev offered "grouse" followed by "house", followed by Mom who offered "spouse".

"What is a 'spouse'?" Lev asked (while Daniel marched through the alphabet in his mind in a search for other words that rhymed with "douse").

I answered, "It is the married partner of a man or woman. So the spouse of a wife is a—"

"—louse," Daniel jumped in with an unwitting example of superb comedic timing.