1) Elena and the F word.
Michelle and I were really worried, as the pregnancy progressed, that our (first) daughter's first word would be "f***" (you know, rhymes with "duck?" I thought I'd keep this post as clean as possible). We worked on cleaning up our own language before she came out. While it still slipped here and there, we were pretty proud of the skill we had developed in getting the point across without the previously frequent use of 4-letter words.
When Elena was about 2 1/2 years old, Michelle and I were having a particularly bad day. No idea what started it, but we were already at each other's throats by mid-morning. Michelle had called me several times, and I hadn't answered, due to leaving my phone at my office during lunch, and then being on a customer call when she called again after that. After listening to a couple of rather angry voicemails, I called her back, and she didn't answer. So I called about 8 times in a row, just to be obnoxious and have all my calls show on her call log.
When she called back, I yelled at her about not answering the phone. She replied, "We were at the f***ing Target, Carl! I can't get a signal in there!" After we calmed down a bit, and apologized on both ends, I heard a little voice in the background. Elena, barely 2 and just starting to put sentences together, asked if she could speak to me.
When she got the phone, she put it right to her mouth, and yelled, "WE WERE AT THE F***ING TARGET, CARL!!" and handed it happily back to Mommy.
1) a) Where is Thumbkin?
Barely two years old, Elena discovered a Sesame Street computer game CD somewhere in my desk. Being a natural hacker, she knew immediately what it was, and asked me if she could play the game. We plugged it in, and watched as some of our favorite Sesame Street characters did some letters, numbers, etc. Her favorite that day was the "Where is Thumbkin?" video, which was cartoony and cute, and of course helped her learn about the various fingers and their names.
The next morning, she did the typical sneak-up-on-Daddy thing to scare me into waking up. Usually, she would come in and yell "Daddy," which would send me upward like Claude the Cat, claws firmly dug into the ceiling, shaking with fear. When I finally got her to learn not to yell at me first thing in the morning, she would come in and smack me flat-handed, usually on my back or rear, occasionally on my belly. Same typical result, but now with more pain included.
This morning, having been practising the new song, she strolled in very quietly, raised her thumb, and said "F***in'!"
My first reaction was "No we're not!" My next immediate reaction was laughter. Of course, Michelle and I made her repeat it a few times before we finally decided we should correct her. They say laughter is the best medicine. It works better than coffee in the morning....
2) Much better than "y'all"
Around the same time as the above story, Elena had finally learned to say "I love you." It was easy for her one-on-one, and each of us was enjoying her bright smile and new phrases, especially this one. But she hadn't yet learned to say this to more than one person at a time.
Sometimes, we would pick her up into a sandwich or a 3-way hug. Michelle and I would both say to her, "I love you," and usually she would say "me, too" or something unintelligible. One day, she got a puzzled look on her face.
She then smiled and said, "I ALL LOVES YOU." We let that one go for the longest time, not wanting to correct her!
3) The Ardenator
Ever watch Phineas & Ferb? Did you notice how the bad guy always calls his new evil contraptions names that end in "-inator?" Sometimes he'll even double-up, like a shrinkinator-inator....
We were sitting at the dining table a while back. Arden was pre-verbal at this point, but due to her brute strength and charming personality (she will clobber me with a smile on her face!), the nickname, "The Ardenator" really started to catch on. Elena ran with this during dinner time, calling me the Dad-inator, Michelle the Mominator, and I told her she's the 'Lenanator.
Suddenly she blurts out, "WE'RE ALL 'NATORs!!"
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please share your kids' quotes or good ones you remember from my kids here!