Isms and Stuff

Recently on Blogger's Blogs-of-Note, a blog called Sleep Talkin' Man appeared. Apparently it is the nocturnal ramblings (ha ha) of a man called Adam who has consented to having his wife blog them for the edification of the world. Warning: if you're going to go read this blog, its nonprofane parts are funny, but there are a lot of profane parts. Adam is a Brit, and they don't view profanity the same way there. But this all got me thinking about the things my family says that tickle me.

Charlie-isms:

Gerbil Tubes: Actually a Gramma-ism that Charlie and I adopted for that germ-infested sludge pit known as the McDonalds Playland.

Purple milk: Apparently Charlie felt that chocolate milk had a distinctly lavendar hue. He stopped saying this when he realized his preschool teachers were not familiar with that flavor.

Pianio (Pee-Ann-Ee-Oh): This is anything that resembles a musical instrument with keys.

Toys Rust

and

Cheetoh Tracks: This is where we went and what we bought for his birthday present (Toys'R'Us and GeoTrax.)

Oh, why can't I think of more of these? I'm sure there are more...

Here's a me-ism:

Kiddar: the innate ability of all children to hear the whispered mention of ice cream from across a crowded restaurant.

It's not really an -ism, but the funniest thing my husband has said recently was when he was puting a whole new shock-strut thingie on the Civic, and a million ball bearings fell out and went rolling all over the place. Joe says, "I don't even know where these things came from!" Yeesh. Just what you want to hear from the guy working on the steerage of your car...

Abraham is talking a bit these days. He says, "Ay-oh!" which we're sure means "hello" since he says it into telephones (and shoes, remote controls, bananas, sprayer faucets, and anything else vaguely phone shaped which he holds up to his ear.) He says, "Ny-ny." I'm not sure what that is. Logically it could be "night-night," except I just can't remember anyone really saying that to him, so where did he learn it? It could be "not nice," and I lean towards this because he says it when he's upset/tired. He says mama and dada and bah-bah, of course. Well, actually "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" and "da-da-da-da-da." What is "bah bah?" It's not, "bottle" because he's a boob man. Baby? Brother? Not sure. But my favorite is that he actually says, "Nom nom nom" when he's eating. And you thought it was just LOLcats...

You've got to wonder what baby thoughts are like. They don't really have words for the things they recognize. Me, I see a car, and my brain says, "Gas sucking money trap..." What does his brain say?

This brings me in a jerky segue to my recent foray into child psychology. Charlie grows like a... well, faster than a weed and all I can think of is a toadstool and that just sounds uncomplimentary. At any rate, his legs frequently hurt him and usually I keep chewable ibuprophen on hand for when they do. Recently, though, I ran out of the tablets, and all I had was a berry flavored, dye free liquid suspension. I told you that story so I could tell you this one. A while back, Charlie got sick and the Nurse-Practitioner at our family doc's office said he had the flu. (He didn't and she's a dufus, but that's a rant I won't go into.) She gave us liquid Tami-Flu for him, which is a white colored syrup medicine. Charlie could not keep the stuff down. It made him yak faster than whatever he was sick with, and ever since he's been afraid of "white medicine."

So the other day his legs were hurting and all I had was "white medicine." Oops.

Me: "Charlie, it's not the stuff that made you sick. It tastes like grape candy. It just doesn't have any color in it so it won't stain your shirt if it drips."

Charlie *holding hands out in supplication*: "No, Mommy. Stop, Mommy. Stop. Pwease."

Me *with drop of white medicine on finger*: "Taste it. It tastes just like the stuff you always take."

Charlie *touching less than one actual tongue cell to medicine then recoiling in horror*: "I don't like it! It's icky!"

Then I had an epiphany. Why have this fight? Charlie was getting in the shower, so I took the medicine in the kitchen and put three drops of red food coloring in the bottle and shook it up. "Oh look, Charlie! Red medicine!" Heh heh heh...

He drank it, said "ich" rather blandly, and went on with his shower.

Problem solved.