Sound like heavy duty vocabulary words you might find on the SAT, don’t they? No, just some nonsense words Warren randomly made up as he was building with his LEGOs one afternoon. Sadly, I didn’t think to ask for definitions, so now we’ll never know how to work them into conversation.
He said them with such authority, though, he might be ready for his first game of Balderdash.
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Once a week we let Warren buy hot lunch from school. It’s the kind of event that gets him out of bed if he’s dragging his feet in the morning. He loves the opportunity to dine on cafeteria pizza, canned peaches, and whole wheat tortilla burritos.
I don’t always know what’s on the menu on any given day, so I make sure to ask him what he consumed. His response is always positive but it’s fun to hear the different reactions he gives depending on the particular food item.
Before I offered him afternoon snack options today I wanted to know what he’d already eaten, lest I duplicate anything. So I asked him what he had for lunch. He reported that he’d been served chicken, but clearly there was more to tell.
“The chicken was so tasty, Mom. It tasted like FISH! It was the best chicken I’ve ever had!!” he said with more enthusiasm than I felt a school cafeteria-prepared meal deserved.
“Carson doesn’t usually like chicken, but he really liked this one!” he elaborated as his eyes sparkled.
Interesting. When we were living in Chicago we frequented a fast food establishment known affectionately as Harold’s Chicken Shack. A Southside special where the cashier takes your order behind bullet-proof glass and you place your money in a revolving payment door. They served, as you may guess, fried chicken among other “heart-conscious” delicacies.
The smell of their deep-frying oil could hit you like a brick as you walked by in the dead of winter. But we were told one rule of thumb for eating there: dine only on the days that it smelled like chicken. Avoid ordering on the days that smelled like fish.
Appears no one gave these boys the warning.
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Some time ago I purchased plastic utensils I thought were kind of fun for the kids to use: brightly colored knives, forks, and spoons shaped like animals.
We were seated at breakfast when Warren paused from spreading the pat of butter on his pancake. He turned the blue plastic knife in his hand and studied the animal shape. Some previously learned information must have come to mind at that moment because quite randomly he asked:
“Mama, swordfishes just go for it, right?”
“I’m sure they do, Son,” I choked out through hearty laughter.
Who can deny the boldness of the mighty swordfish? If we could all just “go for it” like those gutsy creatures…
Entering the educational system has brought many great things to Warren’s world. Unfortunately, it’s also brought an unleashing of potty humor along with it. As with most 5-year-old boys, the urge to create a sentence describing at least one bodily function is almost too much to resist. If one can put it to song, all the better.
After a straight week of sing-song lyrics that rhyme with scoop I knew I had to put a stop to it.
“Warren, those are bathroom words. I don’t want to hear you saying them or singing them like that anymore,” I instructed. “It’s rude.”
Things improved a bit but not enough to close the issue. I had to pull out the big guns.
“Warren, if you can’t stop saying that on your own I’m going to charge you a nickel every time I hear you,” I threatened. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later I made my first five cents.
It didn’t take long. I think he forked over about 20 cents total before it sunk in that I meant business. And he was very honest about it, too. One time I wasn’t sure if the word was an intentional use or just a slip, but he ran and got the coin anyway.
The situation seemed under control. I was no longer hearing poetry involving bodily fluids. I was pleased with the progress. Then one afternoon, when he came home from school, he appeared to need some clarification.
“So, I get charged a nickel if I say poop outside of the bathroom, right? But if I’m in the bathroom, then I don’t have to pay you a nickel, right Mom?” he asked in all sincerity, which I confirmed was true.
He promptly closed himself inside the loo and began performing a soliloquy which could only be entitled, “Ode to Poo.”
Taking a quick break he shouted, “I’m not getting charged for this, right Mom?”
Everyone needs a release sometimes, I suppose.
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Ever since Warren was tiny, we’ve always sung “What a Wonderful World” to him every night at bedtime. I sometimes like to mix up the words to tease him. Usually I’ll substitute our ending “oh, yes” with “oh, yeppers” or “oh, yeash.” He always corrects me until I do it right, no matter how long it takes. I guess last night he was tired of my games. He, exasperated, told me: “Dad, I don’t want to have this argument every time.”
P.S.- Can anyone name the origin of the yeppers-yeash combo?
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Warren is a talker. He always has been, too. His first words were “get it!” at 7 months. Not only does he have a great command of grammar and sentence structure, but his vocabulary is pretty rockin’ to boot. To top it off, he pronounces words very well, especially for a four-year-old.
But for all of his proper use of language, there are some words he says that are a bit wonky. Some are common among preschoolers, like his “l” sounding like “w,” as in wittle, wightning, and Wegos. Others are just the wrong vocabulary word for the occasion. And no matter how many times I remind him that it’s said one way, he continues to mis-pronounce it or misuse it. I love it. I think it’s so endearing to hear his own interpretation of the words.
I know that he’ll one day say them correctly, which kind of makes me sad. So, lest I forget forever, here are some phrases that make me smile every time:
“Is Mt. Saint Helens still interrupting?”
“Did pirates use a canyon to fire from their ships?”
“The elevator doors open atomotically!”
“My birsday is March 26th!”
“Fourteen, feffteen, sixteen…”
“I’m really interested into Legos”
“Calvin and Hobbes are really good at imaginating.”
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I used to say thingers and fumbs and sootball (for football) when I was little. What are some cute ones you or your kid(s) used?
Warren loves to rhyme. I’m sure it’s all the Dr. Seuss we’ve read to him over the years. We seem to always be engaged in some sort of rhyming game or another. The kid is pretty good.
Sometime back, he couldn’t have been more than 3, Warren asked us the following question:
“Have you ever seen a bishop turn into a bershop?”
We laughed and it became a family joke of sorts. Another silly saying to add to the repertoire. He probably asked that 50 more times over the years just for kicks.
Today our bishop was released and a new bishop was called. As soon as we finished raising our hands to sustain him in this calling, Warren turned to Colin and said, “I guess Bishop Green is now Bershop Green since he’s no longer our bishop!”
Seems we’ve seen the transition take place after all.
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We’ve had a few people in our ward preparing for missions in the last few months. Sitting at the dinner table, we started talking about one young man who would soon be entering the Missionary Training Center before heading off to serve a mission in Honduras. I guess Warren had never heard the acronym before and questioned, “What is the empty ocean?”
Colin and I looked at each other in bewilderment and then Colin asked, “You mean the M.T.C.?”
“Yeah,” Warren wondered, “what is the empty sea??”
I love the world through a 4-year-old filter.