Faster Than a Speeding Bullet, More Powerful Than a Locomotive, and Funnier than a Comedian...

Ah, kids do say the darnedest things, don't they? The J Man, now two years old, is beginning to have that linguistic explosion that a friend told me his son recently went through. In a previous post, I mentioned that he has named the vacuum cleaner "I-so-po." Well, he has now named one of his trains "A-pa-ka-zar." How did he come up with that? Any way, when he says words like clock, it comes out like "ka-law" because he hasn't quite mastered following a consonant with an "l" yet, and he often neglects to add the last consonant or he adds a vowel sound after the last consonant. So, dog becomes "dog-uh." Enough linguistics! The other day at dinner, he was saying, "Puh-lough" (rhyming with plow). I could not for the life of me figure out what he was saying. Over the course of the meal, the word transformed into "buh-low" (rhyming with low). Then it hit me. When I give him his first several bites, I blow on the food to cool it off. "Blow!" I exclaimed in triumph. He smiled because I had finally understood. Then I proceeded to apologize. I said, "I'm sorry Honey, sometimes it just takes Mommy a while." The next thing out of his mouth was, "Suh-low" which is how he says "slow." I about lost it. Who knew the boy had such a sense of humor at two?! But he is right. I am suh-low, especially since I am a dabbler in linguistics. I have no problem with so many foreign languages, but give me toddler-speak, and I'm lost.

Ode to a Mom
There once was a woman named Flo
Who kept running around on the go
She had so much to do
'Cause her son just turned two
E'en in fast mode she still was too slow