Say What!

Babies frustrate me.  Thankfully, my wife just adores the whole helpless baby stage with the ‘gooing’ and ‘cooing’.  I tend to enjoy the kids more when they reach that stage where their little personalities are solidifying and they can actually use words and form sentences.  It makes it infinitely easier to tell the difference between ‘my diaper is wet’ and ‘brother just hit me with that pillow’.

That being said, as much as I love my kids being able to communicate, it’s one of the more sad duties of a parent to have to correct their kid’s speech.  After all, we can’t have them going to school and being made fun of by their peers.  Sometimes our little ones do their best to use ‘big people’ words, only to come up humorously short of their intended message.

I’ve put together this short record of some of their more recent attempts.

My wife:  Griffin, what do you want for lunch?

Griffin:  A pa-zombie sandwich.

My wife:  A what!?

Griffin:  A pa-zombie sandwich.

After a bit of guess work, we figured out he was after a pastrami sandwich.

Also, to my eldest’s credit, he has managed to mangle his younger brother’s one syllable name into a monster three syllable word.  Gage has been transformed into Gay-yuh-juh.  This is usually only when he’s frustrated at the little imp.

And, somewhere along the way, the word ‘except’ got changed into ‘Buh-cept’.

Gage’s cuteness seems to spill itself right into his speech.  He’s enamored with firemen and their Dalmatian friends whom he refers to as Fider-fider dogs (Fire fighter dogs).

The lad also holds a deep respect and fear of those big inflatable bounce-arounds that you see at children’s parties and special events.  Writing will do it no justice, but the pronunciation goes something like “I staiwed dem bounce-uh-wowunds.” (I scared of them bounce-arounds.)  It’s always said with a measure of fear and awe.

Gage is not our TV watcher, but one movie he always recognizes characters from is ‘Stoy Stoey’ (Toy Story)

One major reason for writing this Blog is to try and capture those funny moments that tend to slip from your mind with time.  I know there are many other hilarious mispronunciations that I’ve already forgotten, but maybe they’ll come to mind and we’ll do a follow-up at a later date.

One last parting shot before we’re done.

Griffin:  I’m still hungry (for the 4^th time).

Me:  What else do you want to eat?

Griffin:  I want one of those things mommy eats, with a ditch in it.

Me:  A ditch in it?

Tamara:  I don’t eat anything with a ditch in it.

Griffin:  Yeah, that fruit with a ditch in it.

Me:  Oh, you mean a pit.  (He wanted a nectarine)