Where I was
October 3, 2011My mom's 75th birthday wish was to embark on a "psychonautic journey" with her youngest, and I don't know, we were in the desert and there was peyote, and I had no idea a vision quest would or could go on for that long! I sure haven't eaten in many days! And wow, my head. That was too much drumming!
(Is it "take" peyote? Eat? DROP? I am not schooled in the hallucinogenic terminology.)
(Have I ever told you how Henry says "eat" drugs? As in, "I heard it's bad to eat drugs"? This is something I will never correct him on. I am counting on him saying this well past an age where it would be appropriate. And then he's in high school and he says to one of those dangerous drug-taking kids--the kind I hung out with, but never mind--"Hey, man, I'm down with eating drugs" and they never let him live it down and from then on he's afraid too talk to anyone who knows about drugs, much less try anything himself. This is my hope for him. I'm sure that someday he will write a memoir and he'll include this tidbit, and I'll either be vilified for ruining his social standing or praised for my savvy parenting. Or both! I really don't care.)
(I also hope he never stops saying "cock-a-roach," because that is fantastic. Also he seems so confident and cheerful when he pronounces it like that. Please understand that if he were struggling with a word, I'd help him out. For instance, he has a hard time with the words "peculiar" and "familiar," and I don't point and laugh if he stumbles over them. No! I say the word correctly and then I sigh and check my watch.)
(As if I would do that. I don't even wear a watch.)
(For the record, when I was little I struggled with the word "Saturday," when I was a kid, like it gave me a panic attack if I had to say it. I had this mild Long Island accent that horrified me, so when I said Saturday it sounded like "Sat-ih-day" and that was unacceptable to me. I was in college before I could say "Saturday Night Live" without breaking into a sweat.)
(Anyway, as I was saying. Ouch. I should have just chipped in to buy her an iPad. On the other hand I am now intimately familiar with my totem animal.)
(Back soon with something not-made-up.)
Reader Comments (30)
I think it's "smoke" but I'm not 100% on that.
My three-year-old says "froggy" for foggy. "Look, there's frog on the window!" etc. It's...it's the best thing in the world, so I nod and say, "There IS frog on the window! You're right!"
My 7-year-old says "Justin Beaver" and I won't correct him because I'm secretly very happy that he has no interest in the music of his peers. He also has no knowledge of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, and only knows of her by the name I use when talking about her, "Miley Ray Cyrus."
I love it when kids can't say stuff right. My daughter used to say "instresting" instead of interesting, and it was so cute I hardly ever corrected her. She may actually still say it like that (she just turned 26); I'll have to trick her into using it in a sentence next time I talk to her.
If it makes you feel any better I can't say armoire without getting embarrassed. How the hell DO you say it anyway? Armwah? Armorey? Armore? I prefer "portable closet."
My son used to call a calculator a "cock-u-later." Now we all call it that. Except him.
I totally do that to my daughter. She is 8 now and still says "ambleeance" and I will never correct her. Also "venchtables". Lately she's been saying "I know that like the top of my hat!" which I find COMPLETELY adorable. I'm right there with you on the ostracization out of drug taking (eating), too.
My 9 year old and her best friend recently made up a story line involving Barbies, babies, and Barbies doing "really bad things". The "really bad thing" was drinking beer. In her sheltered little life, that is the worst "really bad thing" she could come up with. Well, that and brain eating zombies...
Your cunning plan is flawed, Alice Bradley. Saying: Let's go and eat drugs, is way cool.
And Henry can say he coined it which is even cooler.
Your only hope is to sneak into his room and play Enya's Greatest Hits whilst he's sleeping. Those insidious harmonies will cause irreparable damage to his future popularity, at least enough to counterbalance the inherent hipness thing Henry has going on.
My two-year-old says "fru ck in" instead of "froggy" so obviously we keep buying her things with foggies. She has her fruckin cup and fruckin bag....we know we'll probably need to stop encouraging this soon.
My 3 yr old girl says "fernilla" for vanilla, and I think if I have another daughter I will name her that.
I have a good friend that works as a teen counselor in a wilderness camp...and he once told me a story about a kid. He said he knew everything the kid said was a load of crap when he started talking about smoking 'the pot' at school. Just reminds me of Henry a little bit there!
My 8 yr old said "disposed" instead of "supposed" until recently. As in "you're not disposed to do that." She still says "aminals." And just about a year ago, she said to me "Mama, you're just imaginating that!"
My two-year-old calls kangaroos "kandy-roos." At first I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, and now I make him say it all the time. Also, whenever he finds something he's been looking for he yells "There she are!" He's always so excited that I can't correct him.
i think this whole "eat drugs" thing may be the most realistic anti-drug plan ever. when my sister was little she couldn't pronounce the word "shuffle." instead she would say "flushel." we loved playing cards and she would always insist on "flusheling" the deck herself. to this day my family still calls it that. also, i had an ex-boyfriend who used to pronounce ketchup "chebitz." total red flag, i should've known.
I like this logic! I used to work at a preschool (3 yr olds). There was one adorable kid who always dressed up like a cowboy. He couldn't pronounce the letter 'P'--he used Fs instead. We worked with him on it, but it really got bad around Halloween. Have you ever knew anyone who called pumpkins, "punk-ins"? That is how the kid pronounced it, only "Funkins". Oh dear...being the good teachers we were, we worked with him really hard to get him to pronounce it with a 'P' (after some stifled laughter-fits).
My two-year-old says "Oh my dog!" instead of "Oh my god."
How deep/awesome is that?
I KNEW that is where you were!
I couldn't pronounce the word "pedestrian" for the longest time. It came out as pedestrarian well past the age of ten, and it cracked my parents up. But they still call helicopters "hacky-kackies" and umbrellas "umbabas" now and then, too, out of fond memories of my two-year-old self.
Too funny. I love when kids mispronounce things. My 2.5-year-old says "fuckles" instead of freckles. No plans to correct her, haha. When I was little, I said "tack-too" instead of tattoo. And my little sister said "sold keller" instead of cold cellar.
I wish I could "like" some of the previous comments, and this post. Hilarious.
you can eat, smoke, or drink (in a tea) peyote.
you can also eat (or drink in a tea) mushrooms.
but I agree that the term "eating drugs" is very amusing.
The kids I nanny call breakfast "Brehfixt" and their mom told me (day 1) "they call breakfast brehfixt..and we don't corrent them- because it's really really cute." sure enough- it's quite adorable.
Just like a previous commenter reported, my freshly turned four year old also talks about Dustin Beaver. We don't correct her. She also made up her own contraction for "am not". As in, "Fiona, you are screaming again" to which she'll reply: "NO I AHMENT!!". (amn't). One day we will correct her, but for now we don't because it makes us laugh.
My daughter solemnly informed me that scallions gallop really, really fast.
I'm confused about taking drugs, for the kid. I am all obsessed with telling my kid not to take drugs EVER. Also I tell her not to drink Coca Cola and in the same tone, so I'll probably lose credibility on that one.
Then I remember that taking drugs was fun and when I meet adults that never took drugs, I feel kind of sorry for them.
Still, I don't want my kid to take drugs. Maybe when she's 30, with me. Like you and your mom, we can do peyote together or something. My mom took peyote. Even my grandma smoked pot. We go way back with drugs in my family.
Anyway, I am firmly hoping my kid never takes drugs just like you only I am slightly conflicted.
PS: I realize you probably didn't do peyote with your mom. But that would still be cool. I think that sharing a psychedelic experience is probably a good rite of passage for any mother-daughter relationship.
I'm also pretty sure it is only acid you drop. Everything else is eaten or ingested.
I am with you on the anti-drug front. My 13-year-old daughter recently thanked me for sending her to her (small) (sheltered) Catholic school after she overheard some middle schoolers from a neighboring school talking, she told me, "about smoking weeds." I did not correct her, either.
My almost 12-year-old daughter says, and has since toddlerhood, 'Hewf' when expressing relief, instead of 'phew', as in: "I thought we were out of Cocoa Pebbles, but we're not. Hewf!"
Finally, my 8-year-old confuses 'reversible' with 'inflatable,' a la "Like my new coat? It's inflatable!"
Yeah, they're probably all going to live with me forever. I'm OK with that.