we (ahem, i) speak kinda funny sometimes. been doing it forever. some times descriptive. some times made up. often it is probably considered "odd" to those with ears. those with ears, other than those with ears who live within the same house.
you see...the hubs is now a user of some of my phrases/words. "being a total chode" is no compliment. and usually that is directed to some high-paid athlete who is having a bad day at his job. the word "tool" is not always just used when fixing things. but i was interchanging "chode" and "tool" long before VH1 did their show called "tool academy". just sayin'...
other times i get on a bandwagon. like when i just wrote the "just sayin'". totally not mine. pilfered from someone/somewhere else. and the uber-popular "i loves me some _______" has been uttered from my lips.
well...then hubs and i had a couple of offspring. and they, too, speak funny. totally my fault, i will confess. it goes way, way, way, way back...but it affects us all today.
when wren was a babe, we did the nursery in giraffes. and i called them "giraff-a-moes". when she started talking, an aunt had taken her shopping one afternoon and bought her a new giraffe. the aunt was amazed that wren had named the giraffe "mo". wren was under a year old. i took the wind outta that sail when i confessed that wren thought that giraffes were called "moes" because of my lengthening of the word.
then there is nea. i have called her "teener" since her birth. practically. she really wasn't all the much teenier than her sister (both were +9lbs), but for some reason she had lil chicken legs. and i even coined a witty little tune i sang to her: "teener, tiner...teen, teen, teen!" i stopped singing that one, in public, when a relative pointed out that "teener" is a drug term. oops.
and, well, rather than say "let's go change your pants little one", i instead would say "let's change those pantaloons"...which got shortened to "loonies". and, thus, when i would say i was going to take of "wren's loonies" i would get puzzled looks. and while on the bottom-covering subject...diaper morphed into "diapey" which (rationally) led to "dipsies". so, at bedtime, my girls would be told to "go get on your dipsies and jammies".
and then there is the subject of name-calling. rarely do any of the other 3 get called by their given name. the hubs has been "mr. larson" for years. our senior pastor (who married us) laughs at the fact that i refer to him as that! and wren has been "hopscotch", "hotrod", "spitfire", "wrenner-mcmonkey-mcbean..."(that one actually goes on & on & on and came from the daddy, not me!), "reh", and a host of others. linnea has been "nea-nea" to her sister since day one (since she could not say l's). and "nea-nea" led to "nator" and then "nator-tator" and then just "tator". as she got older i informed the hubs that it would be in nea's best interest if we all conscientiously stopped calling her "tator". grade school kids can be mean. no need to offer them a nugget to use, right? so, then wren would call her "pincess tay-tay" (princess tea-tea) when she wore a dress. too cute! and then there is the all-purpose "koo-koo". "you are being a koo-koo", "you're talkin' like a koo-koo", "why are you acting like a koo-koo?!". none of which are meant in a mean way...mostly silly is what "koo-koo" refers to. but now that we are embarking on school, the "name-calling" has been a topic of discussion at our end of day "chats". trying to explain to my 4 & 5 yr olds that although we, as a family, call names and do so in an affectionate way, not everyone likes to be called something other than their own name. nor do others understand that when the girls call me "momma-llama-dingdong" that i know they are not being hurtful. even when they shorten it to just "dingdong". it has become a "teaching moment" for us all.
oh, and lest i forget...when wren got a kid-friendly encyclopedia last year from her gram...she could not say "encyclopedia" and apparently what she heard when i said "encyclopedia" was merely "p-t-o". she continues to refer to that book as her "pto". and it was so stinkin' adorable that i neglected to correct her. until a little boy asked her what she was talking about one day and she happened to have the "pto" with her and showed him. "that's an encyclopedia," he told her. "i know. it's my pto!" wren replied.
i'd like to end with me promising and crossin-my-heart-without-crossing-my-fingers-behind-my-back that i am going get on path to speak correctly. and properly. and not with my own abbreviations. or adjectives. or adverbs. but i can't. how about if i just promise to say those things not within earshot of others, in public? i think that is a very good place to start!
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