I'll be damned.
Bobbin and I were playing pretend preschool in her room today. She set all of her stuffed animals in a circle on top of her bed. I was told to sit next to Zebra. She spread a cloth napkin out in the middle as a blanket. She picked out a story to read to us. And then she laid down the rules:
In a friendly but assertive voice, if you can imagine that coming out of a 3-year-old, she instructed us all, "I'm gonna read dis stowy, ok? Eveybody needs be quiet and listen. If you don't listen, I'm gonna put you in a time out, ah-wight? Ok."
(Pause)
"Zebwa - zebwa you need to listen. Mommy, Zebwa's not listening. I'm gonna put him in a time out. And then I'm gonna damn him and he's gonna be sad."
Whoa. Back up a sec. You're gonna what? That was the question in my head. What actually came out of my mouth was, in as neutrally curious a voice as possible, "Well, if he's not listening then I agree he probably needs a time out until he's ready to listen. But honey, what's a 'damn'?"
"A damn is something that is very sharp"
Ok...
"A damn can hurt you if you're not careful"
Ummm... yeah...
"It's big and heavy"
sure...
"It's axed-you-ally Spanish".
Ah.
After a few more lines of indirect questioning I'm 99% certain that "damn" is a word that she made up that just happens to sound like... well... "damn". Or perhaps "dam". I suppose I could have just as easily interpreted her declaration as an intent to barricade Zebra behind a wall of sticks, as opposed to leaping to the immediate thought that she was about to condemn his little stuffed cotton soul to an eternity of fire and brimstone if he didn't sit down and be quiet. I tend to wax negative at times.
She's going through this phase where she will make up words and then explain what they mean to you. Sometimes she'll explain they are Spanish or French words. Sometimes they're English words that just require a detailed definition. Because, well, a 37-year-old university educated computer scientist such as myself is not likely to have come across some of these more complicated locutions.
At any rate, Zebra did finally shape up, sitting quietly, albeit lopsidedly, on his stuffed pillow where he was placed. Bobbin was able to read the entire book without further interruption. She even held up the pictures so we could all see. I believe she was axed-you-ally reading in Chinese, so I didn't quite catch the whole story. But the drawings were lovely.
Comments
I wonder what the Cabbagarian translation for "damn" might be? I'm a little rusty.
Posted by Aunt Sarah on August 10, 2008 1:07 PM.For about a year and up until about a month ago Cole had trouble with words beginning with the letter "f" followed by a vowel and the letter "r"...so the word "fork"....was well.."f*ck"... and since he's such a demanding child (eyeroll)...it has never been "may I have a fork, please?" it was just... "f*ck"...the first time he said it we had were so busy trying to figure out which one of us he learned it from (ahem)..that he started saying louder from frustration ... it took Abbey to translate that he wanted a fork and not a "f*ck".
Posted by Lisa on August 12, 2008 6:23 PM.