Dad, you know how we grew up using the word, "like," about every third word of each sentence? I always thought you were a little obsessive about that, and a bit out of touch with the language and it's evolution. I'm sorry about that.
Like all things I once judged you for, your dismay at the slaughter of your mother's English is something I have grown to understand. And to hear a really grating bit of slang fly out of the mouth of my two year old is what helped me get there.
Paige is (like my other two) entirely too fond of argument, and responds to everything with a tart little "Yeah" or a sing-song "noooooo", depending on which one directly opposes me. She's also taken to yelling, "Yeh mean!" with a nice little drawl any time we attempt to stop her from, I don't know, rolling around in mayonnaise on the floor. It's hard to find that funny, what with all the mayonnaise (substitute white-out, glue, nail polish, or any other substance you can imagine) we've been cleaning up.
So the other day we were all in the car enjoying a quiet ride home. It had been a quiet ride for about five full minutes before Paige burst out with an intense shout of "Yeh Hecka Mean!!" Now that's funny. Nothing to clean up-- just good, clean toddler angst. Plus, Raelynn and Miles laughed cheerily for the rest of the ride home.
The part that nags me is that my baby used the word--and I use the term loosely here--hecka. I've been working overtime trying to eradicate the rampant California slang that seems to be invading my children's vocabularies, and "hecka" is my prime target. So Paige busting out with it disturbs me. Deeply. It's, like, totally unacceptable.
But here's the flip side of Paige the Bull. After a week of Mike and I cheerily shouting out, "I'm MEAN!" with big smiles and as much enthusiasm as we could muster, she has informed me that I'm NICE. And I'm not just nice--I'm her most precious, nice mommy. I'm a pretty close runner up to her most precious goat friends, and her most precious baby rock. It's better than being hecka mean, ain't it?
4 comments:
Loving Paige... wondering if she'd be more accommodating (read: into me) these days. It's all one can do not do just gobble her up, but she will have none of it.
Paige is awesome! And anyway you are mean, I've heard it over the phone line in the form of very weird and most likely not enforcable threats. But how can I become one of Paige's most preciouses?
Just trying to find out why no new posts...? It has been too long, Tiny C. Your family is way to gorgeous not to have pictures posted and your writing much to skilled to put it off any longer. I demand a post!
Post! Post!
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