Of course I want my children to speak clearly and with accurate pronunciation and grammar and all … but part of me will always miss those hilarious mispronunciations and misuses and reversals and convolutions of which, with a four-year-old, there are fewer and fewer all the time. So these days I cherish every adorable “somefing” and “I builded it!” and “Where’s da ‘nudder one?” and “My brudder Gabe” just as we celebrate all the correctly used new words he learns every day. And I’m sure many of them will be permanent fixtures of the family lingo for decades to come, just as in most families.
Today we had an icy snowstorm, and nobody was going anywhere, so we all had a lovely day inside, cooking and baking and watching movies and playing with trains; and Finn used one of my favorites:
Me: “Which train is your favorite, Finny?”
Finn: “I like James, with his red coat of paint and the number 5. What’s your favorite, Mama?”
Me: “I like that Chinese dragon.”
Finn: “No! Your favorite is Rosie, ’cause she’s a grale!”
…that’s a “grale” as opposed to a boy, of course. And the furry, bushy-tailed scampering little rodent in the tree is a “squale.”
It never fails: A child spills a big cup of something messy and sticky all over the place, and then, without missing a beat, looks up and asks for more of whatever it was.
Lots of families have Christmas, but my family is the only one that has Christmas & then, a few months later, has Gusmas, when my Uncle Gussie can come home & celebrate with everyone! We have to wait until then because Gussie works for a football team & so he can’t be there at Christmas! So, a few months later, we have Gusmas!
8:50 a.m.: Almost time to leave, and I have one saying he has no appetite and is too sick to go to school; and the other is parading around naked singing Jingle Bells in a Louis Armstrong voice and pretending he’s a robot. We’re off to a great start!
I went to the dentist for the first time today, & I was a very good boy! The dentist said that my exam was better than perfect! So apparently my diet of sticky carbohydrates & refusing to let anyone help me brush my teeth is working nicely!
