Language - Toddler Style

Two funny stories about Bean's interpretation and pronunciation of the English language.

Story 1: The other day, the three of us were driving back from somewhere and happened to be in a little bit of rough rush hour traffic. Having been raised in and on the outskirts of a major east coast city, I'm no stranger to traffic. Nothing really causes me to blink anymore.

Well, except for the lady who occasionally walks down the side roads in my old neighborhood with maxi-pads stuck to her arms and legs, bless her heart. Oh don't worry, they're clean. Just stuck on.

Ahem.

Anyway, while I'm used to everything (almost), that doesn't mean that some things don't ROYALLY tick me off. Like crazy drivers who feel the need to careen in and out of lanes to get all of 100 feet ahead of me. What the crud is your problem, psycho?

I've found myself getting more and more annoyed at this since I've had kids. They're not only endangering themselves, they're putting us at risk. Not cool.

But again, anyway, we were driving down a major road and I put my blinker on and changed lanes only to have some psycho-hose-beast come flying up on my tail and go whipping around me. All the while, he's flashing me a lovely gesture with his middle finger. Then he cuts me off.

Punk nugget.

So before I could control myself, I said, "GEEZ! If you didn't drive like such an idiot, you wouldn't have to be so angry!"

You can guess where this is going.

From the back seat, Bean pipes up, "Mommy? Where's the idi-dot?"

Rats, caught again.

"Um... outside?"

She grins and says, "OOOOOooooooOOOOOO! The idi-dot! It's up in the sky!!"

Right! Sure! Whatever you say!

So that story was fresh in my head when this happened:

Bean was carrying a stuffed toy and running around the basement with my brothers. Suddenly, my brother came over and said, "Um, what's the name of the toy she's carrying?"

I told him I didn't know and asked him why. He suggested I ask her what the name was.

So I did.

"Bean, what's your snowman's name?"

"Re-tard!"

WHAT THE HECK!? That's not a word I use. It's not a word Shaun uses. I started mentally combing through all the people she's been around lately to see if I could find a possible culprit.

Then I thought that she might have been making something up as kids sometimes do. So I asked her again.

And again,

"RE-TARD!"

Oh geez.

I didn't have the slightest idea how to handle it. When she grabbed her snowman and cuddled him to her cheek while saying, "It's ok Re-tard, just go to sleep." I knew it wasn't an insult or a mean word to her...

And then I also knew exactly what she was really saying.

"Bean? Is that snowman named Sweetheart?"

She gave me the, "are you seriously asking me AGAIN?" look and said, "Yeah, Mommy! SWEETHEART!"

Oh thank goodness. I've never been more happy to misunderstand someone in my whole life.