What comes next? P or S?

I told Claire a few weeks ago that she could get her own library card when she can write her whole name. I thought that would dissuade her. I was 18 kinds of wrong. She works at it an hour or so a day. An hour a day for several weeks ought to mean that I have a daughter who can write, or at least spell, her own name. Unfortunately, Claire is not satisfied with merely learning to spell her own name. She wants to spell the world and everything in it. "Spell 'Mommy.' What comes first, T or D? What comes next, P or S?" Considering the spelling difficulties as well as the fact that Claire actually only knows how to write six letters, I think that she's going to take a while to work her way through this project.

I try, of course, to break the project down into more manageable pieces. I started by suggesting that she only work on her name for a while. I finally got tired of scraping her off the ceiling and gave up on that strategy. Next, I tried to write the words for her to copy. That approach resulted in a stabby pencil near my eye and a shrieked, "No! You tell me how to make it!" So I've given up. I spend an hour or so a day saying things like, "Jacob is spelled J-A-C-O-B. An a is a circle with a short line on the right. A b is a circle with a long line on the left." Amazingly enough, I can usually read about half of what she writes. I just can't figure out how to describe an e.