The neighborhood anklebiters are on my lawn.
This post is not going to go where you think it is going to go. Contrary to baseless rumormongering about me hating kids, I actually have a soft spot for the little turds if they can somehow capture my attention. It’s just that they usually don’t; I find children generally to be heartbreakingly boring.
But the kids in my neighborhood have won me over. There are a dozen or so of them, and they constantly play in the street (we don’t get much traffic). They stand on either side of the street and throw balls back and forth, ride up and down the hill on their bikes, and so on as the wee little aliens are wont to do.
But it doesn’t annoy me in the least because their parents have done something right and have taught them how to be careful. Whenever I have to drive through their makeshift street-playground, they engage in something akin to flight deck protocol. It seems that usually one of them has prime traffic-watching duty, and as soon as that one sees a car coming, he or she will engage in verbal and hand signals to clear all the other kids out of the path of danger. They all pay attention all the time, frankly, and it actually surprises me how very seriously they take it. Almost makes me wonder if they all know someone who got hit by a car. In any case, I’m just glad to see it. It warms my cold heart.
Anyway, mostly I wanted to tell you how the little girl next door cracks me up. She’s 5 years old, has the soul of an old man, and has the same speech impediment I had until first grade, which is she can’t say her R’s. Seriously - my name was Wachel until I was 6. My favorite color was wed, and I liked to eat ice cweam. Laugh all you want, I own it.
So the other day I was out front watering my lawn because I had just put down new seed and fertilizer (we have total shade, and grass does not want to grow there). The little girl came wandering over and engaged me in conversation.
Girl: “So…why aw you watewing yow lawn again?”
Me: “It’s baby grass and I have to water it every day or it’ll die.”
Girl: “Hmm. Well I guess that makes sense. So, I like yow house. You wenting this place?”
(No seriously. That is exactly what she said, and she is 5 years old, and I am not shitting you.)
Me: “Yes I am.”
Girl: “Huh. How much does it wun you?”
Me: “[X] dollars a month. Too much!”
Girl: “Yeah, it weally adds up. One thousand, two thousand, thwee thousand, befow you know it, they have all yow money!”
(No, SERIOUSLY. I am not making this up - the kid is either coached by her parents to get information out of me or she is 30 years older than she looks.)
Me: “Heh! You seem to know a lot about finance!”
Girl: “I know a little. So how aw yow dogs? They doin’ okay today?”
Me: “Yeah, they’re mad because we didn’t walk long enough this morning.”
Girl: “They always want somethin’ don’t they! Always somethin’! I have kitties, I don’t have to walk them but they show do want somethin’ fwum me all the time! Usually food! A lot of food! I say,” [sternly pointing at imaginary kitty] “no mow food, but they want it! What am I gonna do!? I don’t know if they aw weally hungwy so I just give them it!”
By that point I couldn’t even keep a straight face with the kid, and giggled something to her about how fat Sunny is and the slippery slope of her feeding methods, she thanked me for my advice, and then she ran off down the street. Cutest little turkey I ever talked shop with. And yeah, she’s the kid whose cat Digger tried to eat that one time. Now I really would have felt bad if I hadn’t stopped him.
I laughed myself to tears on that. Thanks for sharing.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pmWachel,
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:43 pmDid you wash you hands after talking to her? Those things are contagious….you could end up PREGO for just talking to her!
Careful there Rachel, you are on a slippery slope.
First you notice them, then you allow them to play in your neighborhood, then you talk to them, and finally, well you have one of your very own. Be afraid, very afraid.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:44 pmAwwww … did you spontaneously ovulate again, Rachel?
Note to Rupert: RUN!
Keep that up, Rachel, and YOU will be the one people hate for helping your kid with a fundraiser : )
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:45 pmI’m sure that little girl would totally crack me up if I was talking to her. I’ve met a few like that, and it’s always fun to listen to what they have to say.
I don’t know what to call the speech problem my youngest son has. It’s kind of a “stiff tongue” problem. It’s not very specific, but some combinations of syllables get mushed together. One that always trips him up is “crayons”. It comes out, “crowns”. Unfortunately, he fights working on the problem, and still has it to some extent even though he’s 12.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:01 pmKid sounds like a New Yawkuh.
I think I had trouble with ls. I remember a lot of l words when I was in speech therapy.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:02 pmMy oldest couldn’t say “l”. For the longest time it came out “y”…so it was often embarrassing when she’d point at someone and say “look!”, and it sounded like “yuck!”
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:05 pmOK, Ok, I got to tell this story:
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:15 pmFor some reason my 3 year old daughter was a big fan of flags. Probably the bright colors; she was definitely a bright-color person. So one afternoon we are in the San Francisco airport, her in a stroller and me pushing. That particular United concourse had a very colorful array of national flags displayed the length of the ceiling. The little darling looks up, points, and in a loud voice says “Look Daddy! Fags! Fags!”
There was a short, thoughtful silence, and then I bent over to her and calmly said “Dear, it’s not polite to point.”
My wife just about died keeping the LOLs inside.
*Tick* *Tick* *Tick*
…
What?
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:18 pmWhen my son was 6, he was on antibiotics for one reason or another. He passed gas, looked at me, and said “Mom, this medication is causing flatulence” - I almost died laughing. Of course it was funnier that dear hubbie didn’t know the word!! (And he usually is quite smart - hubbie that is).
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:30 pmThe 2 lines that cracked me up the most:
“It warms my cold heart.” (Mainly b/c I have that same feeling sometimes.)
“Cutest little turkey I ever talked shop with.” (The phrase talk shop is not used nearly enough.
And whoever did the “Biological Clock” post up ther is a damned genius.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pmKittens, puppies and kids. They’ve gotten to most of us, Rachel. DUCK!
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm@Christina:
“L” is one of the last sounds they seem to master. My eldest also had a tough time with it. My mother-in-law’s name is Lily, and my daughter called her “Grandma Yeeyee”. (We still call her that 21 years later.)
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:55 pmTreat kids the same respect that adults generally get treated (instead of the stupid kid talk) and they act and are a lot smarter than many people think.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pmMy name was Wick Woos (Rick Loos, long o in the last name. I beat the Rs before the Ls, but I don’t remember my age when I conquered, other than it was by 1st grade. kids do not become interesting to me until they are 10-12 or so.
With all the child protection this politically correct nation covets, I should invent the ‘plastic ball for the average kid’. It would have volume control on the outside as one of the prime features. You would save money because you would no longer need carseats for example. And when they cry for a pet they will never take care of, you can go to a pet store with ’special tryout models’. Stick it in the bubble for about 10-15 minutes and if the kid still wants a pet, you can take it a bit more seriously.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:02 pmIt is really bad when TR comes out F.
Imagine sitting with a three year old when he is yelling about trucks. He also had a thing about clocks, he just always left out the L’s.
As far as kids go. I love ‘em. They can be the funniest, wisest beings in the universe.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:03 pmThere was a little kid like that at the barn where my daughter used to ride — 5 going on 50! She was such a little old lady, it was all I could do to keep from laughing when we talked — horses, tack, vehicles, finances, elder care! She was a veritable font of wisdom delivered in a broad, Central Virginia accent that just about killed me. Only child — and sharp! — so I suspect she was probably just picking up on what she heard at home.
Our own kids’ speech glitches came and went pretty fast, but included the “y” for “l” (”light” was “yite,” “black” was “byack”) and, much weirder, an inability to pronounce “s” before a consonant — which, when combined with the overgeneralized use of “E” as the name for all letters, produced the inscrutable “E for ‘nake!”
Now, of course, they’re fourteen and twenty, nicknamed “My Horribles,” and I tell them they don’t need to worry about favoritism, “‘Cause I hate you both the same!”
Watch out, Wachel, they’we kinda infectious!
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:11 pmWe’ve always spoken to our kids like they were adults, never did all the baby talk stuff. But it still surprises me when they talk like little adults. My 4yo daughter was asking for a snack the other day, and when i said no, she said, “Why not? I’ve been quite good today!”
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:13 pmWhen I read that, my first thought was “Fleas?”
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:14 pmThat is so funny, my Grandson of about the same age was asked by Grandpa the other night if he wanted a snack and he said, “no, I didn’t finish my dinner.”
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:06 pmAw c’mon Wachel, you’re one of those people who just claims to hate kids but really has a soft spot for them, aren’t you?
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:48 pmthat’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:49 pmMy nephew was one of those wonderkids. Went from googoo-gaagaa to complete sentences overnight. It was hilarious and equally freaky at times. Especially after his dad did a complete hack haircut (by accident) and then drew a little mustache on him–looked just like Hitler!
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:50 pmI had the same speech impediment as Wachel through to the 5th grade, so age 10 or so. In 5th grade they put me in speech therapy for it. When I am very tired, or when I am drunk, I still occasionally slip back into that. So I am vewy pleased to dwink with my fwends.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:53 pmNo Kitteh! That’s Mi Chicken Pot Pi!
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:10 pmThank you, thank you.
This reminds me of the flower girl at my sister wedding actually, cute as a button, but also able to talk a lot smarter than you would think for that age.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:22 pmAnd for speech problems… what is it about the word spaghetti that makes kids want to call it pah-scetty… I did this one too for quite awhile (I literally could NOT say the word correctly) and then suddenly stopped.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:24 pmWhen I was stationed in Korea my next door neighbor was the principal of the DoD school on base. He had two kids, the youngest, Alex, was maybe three or four. The housing area of the base was kid safe so nobody worried about their kids going out and everybody got used to seeing them around and kept an eye out (just like in a real neighborhood).
One day I was home early and making myself a mug of tea when Alex showed up at the front door. I asked if he’d like some and he solemnly entered the house and watched as I brewed him a smaller mug, lightly sugared it, and added a little cool water. Then we sat in the living room and silently but companionably enjoyed our tea. Alex was not a big talker, at least not at that age.
After that, he came by the house every day in the mid afternoon, demanding “tea! tea!” Apparently he never had it at home, but it became part of his daily routine to drop by my house for a mug. He’d be nearly thirty now - I wonder if he still drinks tea.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm*
Oh Bother!
You’re going to get preggers within the year and the multifaceted process of reproduction will be all you talk about for YEARS.
You know that, don’t you Wachel?
*
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:11 pmJust curious, and there seem to be a lot of parents around here, so: is the incidence of speech impediments increasing these days? I don’t remember anyone I knew when I was growing up who had one. My nephew has a problem, but it’s a physical deformity of his tongue and also partly related to his epilepsy. But you guys all seem to know or remember someone with a problem they grew/are growing out of. It makes me wonder. Anyone have any insight?
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:37 pmcknight,
I don’t think their is a higher prevalence.
I had problems with “l” up until I was 13 or 14 and i am 65 now. A number of my friends had similar, but not identical, problems.
i grew up in Southern California and we had a number of kids that were from different states and had moved there at the time. So, it isn’t just a regional problem.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:47 pmCknight:
Naw. You probably just didn’t notice as a kid because you had one, too, and all the other kids around you just sounded normal to you.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 pmSeriously, I didn’t realize or remember I was a lisper until I saw and heard some old 8 mm footage of myself at 5 and 6. Dayum! I know where they got the saying “you serve towels with that shower?”
Oh my gosh, she is such an old soul! You aren’t kidding. After over 20 years of cat ownership I’m finally arriving at her conclusions.
My oldest nephew couldn’t say his R’s as a little boy, either, but I chalked it up to the fact that he had been living near Cape Cod. He sounded like Baby Bear from Sesame Street. My niece, on the other hand, is almost four and has the same lisp my brother (her father) did at that age, according to our mom. It just makes the serious talk even more mind-blowing when they’re doing it with that little kid lisp.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 pmRachel, I think you’re becoming a tease. First, you get people’s hopes up by reading some C.S. Lewis and declaring that he might actually be on to something. Then, you follow that up with this. Are you hoping to lure… nay, entice a few of the breeders to harass your mailbox so you can throw down another rant? Or, do you just enjoy building up everybody’s hopes and dreams, only to laugh manically when you dash them against the rocks like so many fleas?
We’re on to you, Rachel. We’re on to you.
(Okay, I really don’t care either way, but it is fun pretending that you’re a sociopathic megalomaniac.)
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 pmBe wawy Wachel, that kid is posessed!
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 pmI swear, one of the best things hubby and I ever did as parents was vow before our kids were ever born to never EVER babytalk to them. My son (almost 5) can easily carry on a conversation with an adult, similar to Rachel’s neighbor-child. (Except more about sports or John Deere tractors than about houses and kitties.) My daughter is only 18 months, and doesn’t say as many words as her brother did at that age, but she still loves to sit and converse in her own babbly way.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 pmcknight, I don’t think there’s a higher prevalance, I just think most people forget who had what speech impediment when they were young– my son outgrew his less than two years ago (”w” for “r” and “l”), and I hardly think about it anymore when I recall things that he’s said.
Rachel:
So you’re saying your name isn’t Wachel now?
Srsly.
Chester
May 24th, 2008 at 12:07 amWachel, Jamfish and I have a 4 1/2 year old who is going on 16. She talks like this ALL THE TIME. Once, she was whining at me because we were leaving the library and she wanted to keep playing on the computer, so I started whining back at her. She immediately straightened up, glared at me and said, “I am not having this conversation with you in a parking lot,” and stalked off to the car.
By contrast, our nearly 3 year old son is doing intensive speech therapy through a local education facility, and will start special ed preschool in the fall. After introducing our daughter to the speech therapist, she is as convinced as we are that one of the reasons that our son doesn’t talk is because his sister does all the talking for him!
That, and after she met the speech therapist, our daughter asked for the woman’s email address so she could “send some more information” about her brother.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:34 amWatch out for her, Rachel, she’s gonna be a world dominating blogger in twenty years just like you!
My daughter would mix up her m’s and p’s and f’s. Spaghetti was sfaghetti and machine was fachine. Grew out of it before starting school. She also grew up around adults and could hold her own in talking shop. When Teresa entered first grade she started backsliding. Had to be being around more children.
And, also, TICK-TOCK! TICK-TOCK! heh!
May 24th, 2008 at 7:58 amBeing without kids myself, I have to mooch stories from the 5 and 3 year old boys who live next door. The 5 year doesn’t seem to have any issue with pronunciation, just word substitution. I woke one morning, heard some activity next door. With coffee in hand I looked out the dining room window to see the following. He was was in his spider man footie pajamas, toy shovel over his right shoulder, march. march. march. march. Quarter turn, quarter turn. All executed very crisply. We he realized I was watching, I asked him what he was doing. “Midget-ary marching.” “Ah! I see. Carry on”.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:30 amHa!
Another clever ruse from our devious diarist.
She continues to lay groundwork, turning the soil ever-so-slowly.
“Kids are so cute.” “…warms my cold heart.” “Chah-ley!”
All while our silent homecoming hero braces for the inevitable CONVERSATION.
There will be pensive glances, soaring rhetoric of duty to mankind, and furrowing of faces.
As she weaves her agonizing tale of yearning and destiny, as the telltale biological clock becomes deafening percussion, as he faces the awesome realization that he must soon make a gut-wrenching, life-changing CHOICE, she says:
“Or we can just get a puppy!”
And thus, poof goes the four-mammal limit.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:23 amY’all, these comments are making me giggle even more than the neighbor kid did.
Heh. Carbo you may be on to something. PUPPY!
I promise everyone I am not preg, thinking about getting preg, or anything preg-related. I like to enjoy children’s shenanigans vicariously, that’s all. Not sure it would be so cute if I also had to wipe their butts and feed them. Eww.
Anyway I love these stories. more stories! The marching kid tale by Chick Voice made me choke on coffee. Deanna, your girl sounds like someone I would like to have a cocktail with.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:37 amWachel:
Seriously now, if you are going to insist on talking to the anklebiters as if they are rational creatures with functioning brains you have only yourself to blame when your house becomes the favorite play-place of the neighborhood.
otpu
May 24th, 2008 at 10:48 amcknight, unlike Just Plain Bill, I think it may be true that there is a slightly higher prevalence of speech impediments, but also that there is something to the idea that you are just noticing them more. I think there may be more, because children are not speaking with adults as much as they used to, and therefore don’t have the example of proper speech patterns as much as we did.
When I was little, I got a little of the “Wow, he’s a smart kid” because I hung out and played cards with my parents and their friends, plus after I was about 4, I got to go sit with my dad in the mornings while he had coffee at the local restaurant and talked about things with his buddies before going to work. Since I was all about sitting and listening, and only occasionally speaking up, I learned a lot back then.
On the other hand, my oldest was all about the dinosaurs when he was little, so he would impress people with rattling off the 9-syllable names of the dinosaurs he knew, even though he does have trouble mumbling a lot, just not as bad as the other one.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:01 amI was at a local decorating store with my 12 and 2 year old nieces. We were looking for some cute items for the twelve year old’s bedroom. A lot of the stuff was very 60’s era hippy chick looking so I made the observation that it was all quite funky. Well, little Miss Emma, the two year old, really liked that word…but she couldn’t pronounce it right. Her mother was not amused.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:24 amWhen I was a kidlet myself, I was years ahead of my age-group on verbal stuff—my mom’s friends used to love to talk to me, because I was so articulate, and because even at that age, I was incredibly pragmatic. They’d ask me what to do in some hypothetical situation, and couldn’t believe how well-thought-out and cold-blooded my answers usually were.
It helped a lot that my parents never talked baby-talk to me, and didn’t restrict my reading or TV viewing—their take was that I’d come to my own conclusions and that they’d be good ones. I never disappointed them.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:39 amMy mom has any number of stories like that about me. Here is the text of a note I wrote her when I was in fourth grade, which she still carries in her purse because it is so hilarious. I swear this is the actual text right down to the spelling and punctuation.
Sadly, I never really grew out of the arrogance on display here. I just learned to hide it better, heh.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:06 pmMe thinks shes doeth protest too much . . . . . AGAIN!
I still say our dear friend Wachel is preggers and she is just warming us up to the idea!
If she’s not now, she soon will be! It gets everyone you know! LOL
May 24th, 2008 at 12:35 pmI was a natural-born know-it-all. The first eighteen months of life were sheer hell, what with my inability to articulate to others their shortcomings.
By the age of five, my rationalist left brain had already eaten more than a third of my creative, fun-loving right brain. My mother had taken to politely calling me her “willful” child.
So anyway, he-who-comes-home-at-six-thirty had decreed that all Carboys shall learn to swim upon the attainment of age five. I was enrolled, against my will, in swim lessons at the neighborhood pool and tennis facility.
My instructor, whom I remember as a cold, heartless bitch, was most likely a sixteen-year-old girl who lived down the street and was earning her final Girl Scout badge. For purposes of this story, I’ll call her Tammy.
So Tammy began teaching Willful Boy the same way she taught all the others–first by putting their faces in the water, blowing bubbles and such.
Five-year-old Carbo says, “Fuck That!”
“Why does my face need to be in the water? What does that have to do with getting from point A to point B in the pool? I’ve seen plenty of swimming with no faces in the damned water. What’s your angle, Tammy? What are you trying to pull?”
After just a few lessons, Tammy was totally flustered. As was my mother, until…
In an epiphany she realized, jujutsu-like, that my strong will must be directed against itself. She asked simply, “So when are you going to learn to swim?”
It was as if a meteor had struck the pool. I had been fighting a linear fight, and I was winning. But this was a new dimension. I had never fought the objective, only the methods. The onus was now on me.
Flummoxed by the question, my mind raced. When would I learn to swim? Next year? Before I graduate? Age thirty-two?
Panicked by the fear that my iron will might crack, I blurted, “Thursday.” I would learn to swim by Thursday.
So the appointed day arrived, and I found myself in the pool. Summoning everything I had seen and thought I knew about swimming, I set off. It was the most ghastliest flailing of limbs you’ve ever seen. It was the original source of the word “akimbo.” My face stayed above the water line the entire time.
But I swam, goddammit. It was Thursday.
May 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pmSo, Rachel, when are you?
May 24th, 2008 at 3:39 pmReminds me of my cousin, who was speaking like an adult at 5. Seriously…my sister spent a summer with that family and she thought she had him figured out.
She said, “if he starts to ask too many questions, just ask him why the sky is blue, and I’ve conditioned him to say, ‘because some questions don’t have answers.’”
Well, inevitably, I grew tired of his questions, and I said, “why is the sky blue, Alex?”
Without hesitation, he said, “because the atmosphere of the earth diffuses the light from the sun and causes it to disperse into a blue hue.”
…which, of course, is the answer he would give if his father was an astrophysicist.
And his father is an astrophysicist.
May 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pmNylecoj Says:
It is really bad when TR comes out F.
Imagine sitting with a three year old when he is yelling about trucks.
That would be me, about 33 years ago.
Steve Skubinna, that’s a delightful tale about Alex. Thanks for sharing it.
May 24th, 2008 at 4:13 pmMy daughter, after watching Star Wars… again:
“Mommy, when I was a baby, did I use the Force?”
Otcconan’s story reminds me of the 5 1/2 year old son of good friends of ours. The kid is reading 2nd grade level books and doing 1st grade math at the moment (they are homeschooling him - technically, he’s in kindergarten). Dad is a Ph.D, a professor in biochemistry, and the boy wants to be a scientist just like Dad when he grows up.
He drew a picture of what he will accomplish as a scientist - he will create a soap that kills people. If you wash your hands with it, you will DIIIE. And yes, he wrote DIIIE right above the picture of the soap pump.
May 24th, 2008 at 4:44 pmIt’s funny how I, at least, didn’t really notice my kids’ vocabularies when they were little — it took other people’s reactions to make me aware that they were at all unusual. A friend just recently told me how my then six-year-old had made her laugh at the beach one day by very matter-of-factly declaring that the waves were “destabilizing!”
Hearing others’ memories of my kids now is much like seeing them in someone else’s arms when they were small — perspective!
May 24th, 2008 at 4:57 pmDinosaurs are very popular with the kids they seem to learn all about them early. I have two grandsons, the older one will be 4 in July. A couple months ago I had them for the weekend so we went to visit my parents.
May 24th, 2008 at 5:54 pmJames was playing with a Tyranosaurus making growling sounds and poking at my Mom’s knee. She started saying help, help he’s eating me. He stopped and found a stegosaurus and started poking her again and said “Don’t worry Manna, this one is a stegosaurus, he won’t eat you.”
The kids in my condo neighborhood might be saying cute things, with a speech impediment - I can’t tell. None of them speak English! But I’m sure they are adorable.
Oh, and if Rachel was with child every time one of you guys called ‘Preggers’, by now she either has two kids she hasn’t told us about, or has been pregnant longer than an elephant.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:16 pmRachel, let me be the first to apologize for missing your anniversary. I’m very sorry, and it won’t happen again for at least a year.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:26 pmThe setup: When I was a kid, we once visited this place called “Montezuma’s Castle”. It was a pueblo cliff dwelling, kind of like Mesa Verde only without the publicity, and back in the early 70s, they still let you go into the ground-level rooms by yourself. I was about 5 or 6 when we went, and thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Sometime later (a few months, maybe a year), I decided to write a story about it, and partway into it, got a bit stuck and needed some help.
The incident: My mom was in the living room having coffee with some neighbor ladies, when I called out (in the same singsong kids use for telling on their little brothers), “Mom-meeee, how do you spell Montezuma’s Castle?”
And my mom called back, “Sound it out, dear!” No hesitation that I could or would.
But it was important to me that I got it right, so I think I dug around until I found one of the brochures, and copied it from there. I couldn’t quite sound it out, but I knew where to look it up.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:47 pmMy cousin’s niece is almost 5.
When her niece started talking, she couldn’t say L’s…they were W’s.
Lulu was WooWoo…..and it stuck.
She can say L’s now but still calls her aunt, WooWoo.
However, once when the niece’s mom was upset but didn’t want to cuss in front her daughter, so she yelled “Duck it !!”
May 24th, 2008 at 9:36 pmBut when her daughter exclaimed “Duck it!” a few times away from home….she had to stop her…it was too obvious what it really was.
There’s an anecdote about mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss that you might like. When Gauss was three years old, he was playing outside and fell and skinned his knee. His governess saw this and immediately rushed over to comfort him. She said something like, “Ooo, did Carli-poo get himself a boo-boo? Can I kiss it and make it all well?” He speared her with an icy stare and replied disgustedly, “Thank you, madam, but the pain has already abated!”
May 25th, 2008 at 2:26 amDeanna, the only problem with the 5 1/2 yo’s plan for the poisoned soap is that it wouldn’t work in Fwance!
May 25th, 2008 at 8:20 amYou this the neighbor’s kid’s are cute? Wait till you and Rupert have your own! You’ll fall in love like you never dreamed was possible. I went through the same cycle, we all do.
Who wrote: Run Rupert Run!!
Classic!! LOL : )
May 25th, 2008 at 9:53 pmWait ’til the little SOBs trample your freshly planted lawn. Then you’ll be singing a different tune.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:48 amSorry Watchel, you won’t know anything until you have your own. While you are working through your drama though, it sure would be fun to have a little more blogging about this kid. Invite her over to paint the dog or something.
May 26th, 2008 at 11:39 amRachel — they have even cooler pictures available now …
I LOVE you old stuff SO much! It’s a great “historical” read! Thanks, Carbo, for the link to the old stuff.
May 26th, 2008 at 8:08 pmWhat a pwecious little girl! My bff’s daughter was talking like that by the time she was four or five, too. LOL on the “so how much does it wun you?”
May 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pmWhat a wonderful story, Rachel. I read it twice and laughed harder the second time round. THIS is worth hitting the tip jar for (and I will).
May 27th, 2008 at 4:10 pm