Attention!

Kids say the funniest things. I know that you already knew that, but we have had some humdingers here lately. For one thing, my son has had some problems with using potty words on the playground at preschool. So, as you can imagine, we have instituted the "no potty words unless you are in the bathroom" rule around here. I got called out on that one today. Let me defend myself by saying that I was in the laundry room while putting clothes in the wash, talking about poop on some clothing, and my son heard me say it from two rooms away. How come his hearing isn't that good when I ask him to pick up his toys?

My daughter is chattier by the hour, it seems. She, who frequently refers to animals by the sounds they make, began shouting "doggy! doggy! DOGGY!" from her second row perch in the mommy-van this morning. Any other day, I would have heard "Arf, arf, woof, arf, woof, ...." But today, another new word. Hooray! Her enunciation is pretty good - she even managed "den-ist" yesterday. There are still, however, some cute "misses":
Buh-T = bite OR book
ah-pohw = apple OR hippo
doh-wa = Dora, OR an attempt to say her brother's name

Another fun thing kids do with words - using a word or figure of speech in a manner that's not quite right. Last night, I told my daughter to "drink up" as she was ... slowly ... drinking ... her ... cup ... of water after brushing her teeth. She promptly threw back as if she was downing a tequila shot..... Look at the little fairy counter below - that's how young she is - and she took me literally. Just too funny! My son keeps telling me when he's sick that he needs to go to the dentist - not sure how he confused that one with the doctor - you know, the one with the "skefo-scope"!

An alternative to misusing the figure of speech is totally misunderstanding it, and then using it anyway. My son's current favorite - and we just play along - is, "I'm gonna take your attention!!!!" What does it mean? Excellent question! Where'd he learn it? No idea. I even asked the preschool teacher. Really, we have no idea. In what manner does he use it? It's sort of equivalent to "I'm gonna beat you!" (in the racing sense of the phrase). Mainly, we hear it in the car. He jumps into his booster seat, yells, "I'm gonna take your attention!" and the race to be the first to buckle in is ON! Of course he wins - I'm always busy buckling in may daughter (who is saying "no, no" or "bah-kul" depending on her mood). The good news is that this has been going on for weeks now, and he's still just as excited about it every time - now I need to try it out at clean-up time!!!