Of This and Other Worlds

Pollywog just asked me to put his favorite video game on the computer for him (due to his aforementioned love of bulls, that would be Extreme Pamplona, naturally). But he wanted to make sure the screen was maximized first: "Full-scream it, Mommy."

That bit of cuteness reminded me of how my kids still refer to "breakfast" as "brekstef" and talk about cutting paper with "snizzors", but it also made me think about the odd bits of vocabulary that have been handed down through my family over the last couple of generations -- words and sayings that we all take for granted, but which cause strangers to go "Huh?"

My maternal grandmother died before I was born, but by all accounts she was an affectionate, good-humored, and unapologetically quirky character. She was a Cornishwoman born and bred, and she passed down to her children and grandchildren not merely a patriotic love of Cornish pasties and Saffron Cake, but also an assortment of strange and wonderful sayings.

In my grandmother's household, minor acts of naughtiness among her children would be rebuked with phrases like, "Oh, you rotten rubber duck!" or if the incident were truly irritating (such as the cat getting into the milk), "You demon blackguard wretch!" On the other hand, someone who suffered a minor mishap or disappointment would be soothed with a pat on the shoulder and a softly intoned, "Nizzles." Or she might even say "Bless your screeds and gizzards." (I know what "gizzards" are, but what on earth are "screeds"?)

My grandmother also had the perfect description for the impulse that leads a finicky mother to clean off some smudge on her child's face by rubbing it with spit: she called it "clane base-tliness" (clean beastliness). And I can only blame my grandmother's influence for the poem I use when trying to remember the months of the year:

Thirty days hath Septober,
April, June, and no wonder.
All the rest have peanut butter,
Except for Grandma, and she rides a tricycle.

What about the rest of you? What unique words, phrases and/or sayings have been passed down in your family?

Okay, I am not normally in the habit of inflicting random videos of other people's moppets on people, but this is actually quite amazing. Check out this two-year-old girl -- only a couple of months older than my own toddler -- singing "The Lord's Prayer":



I'm particularly fond of the conducting near the end.

I took a shower this morning, which doesn't sound like much but which is actually quite a feat of engineering when your husband is away, and your one-year-old has a dangerous tendency to open the shower curtain and get himself (and the floor around the tub) soaked.

Our house is pretty well childproofed, so when I have to shower without benefit of babysitting services, I leave the door open and put the baby gate across the doorway. That way I can peek out from behind the curtain every now and then, to reassure Simon that I'm still there and everything is fine. Unfortunately, while the theory may be sound, in practice it never works. No matter how many times I poke my head out or how cheerfully I say "Peekaboo!", Simon continues to cling to the gate while howling at the top of his small lungs, apparently convinced that Mommy is being eaten by the Shower Monsters and will never, ever come back.

Today, however, the shrieking only lasted a couple of minutes. I finished my shower wondering if Simon had finally grasped the concept of object permanence, and came out to find three-year-old Nicholas proudly awaiting me at the gate.

"I looked after the baby while you were in the shower," he said. "I wiped his nose 'cos he was crying, and I telled Simon not to worry because God was looking after him."

And indeed, he had. Simon was playing with blocks in the boys' bedroom, his face was clean and he appeared perfectly contented. So I praised Nicholas lavishly for being such a good big brother (especially since his usual relationship with Simon involves yelling "Mine!" and snatching toys out of the baby's hands) and finished my morning ablutions at leisure.

Hopefully this is a trend, because it would be really nice to shower whenever I want to. I knew there were challenges associated with motherhood, but I never guessed that something as simple as taking showers would be one of them...

Overheard in the past couple of weeks:

"I think we should put Simon up for auction on eBay, don't you, Nicholas? He's still cute, you never know what we might get..."

and

"You know, Nicholas, we had other little boys before you and Simon came along. But they're not here anymore, because we cooked them and ate them."*

Apparently, I married Calvin's dad. "MOMMMMMMMM!!!"
--
*Don't worry, he did explain to Nicholas that he was only joking. Eventually. But I don't think Nicholas fully understood or believed him in either case; if he had he no doubt would have been upset, but as it was he only giggled.

Here, more or less verbatim, is the text of Nicholas's first sermon, which he delivered to his grandparents and myself after sternly commanding us to sit down and listen while he "preached":

"On the first day, God created the aminals, and the juice, and all the yummy food. And then... there were people... and they turned... into a pumpkin."

I'm not sure what translation he's reading -- sounds more like a paraphrase to me.

Nicholas's verdict on our new reclining sofa and matching rocker-recliner:

"Don't wike it! Take it back!"

The old sofa and loveseat, you see, had nice soft foam cushions he could pull off and make a tower out of, and the new furniture doesn't. Never mind that the old set were garage-sale purchases with no decent back or seat support, whereas the new ones are gorgeous (hunter green with a faux-suede finish) and comfortable to sit on... if the cushions don't come off, it's no good, as far as Nicholas is concerned.

Oh, well. He'll get over it. I think.