Short-sleeve pants

I had a conversation with a friend and fellow mother a while back about the honesty and innocence that can be observed through the words of a child. I told her of the time Cooper picked up a pair of sunglasses and said, “Hey, Mom, I’ve got cool in my eyes!” She recalled a time when her daughter had referred to pedal pushers as “short-sleeve pants”. Yes, a child’s interpretation of the things we take for granted is often simple, comical, and priceless.

From responding to a loud noise with, “You scared my ears!” to discovering that with the lights off, “It is dark in my eyes,” children are accustomed to living life in the literal. I told Brisco one day that his nose was runny. He had no problem correcting me by saying, “No, Mommy, my snot is running.” It seems he could still feel his nose upon his face.

One afternoon while preparing for company, I flew about frantically, putting away toys and folded clothes. Aware of my frenzy, Cooper questioned, “What are you doing, Mom?” With a rush in my voice I said, “I’m picking up the house; it’s dirty.” Cooper responded with a straight forward sigh, “Aw, silly Mom, the house is too heavy! You can’t pick it up! If you need to wash it, get you some water!”

And just last week, I teased a friend that it was such a beautiful day, I might just “lay out” all afternoon in the back yard. I looked out the window later that day to find both boys on a blanket and a pillow “laying out” in the middle of the yard.

Taking us literally is only one way in which children are mystified by our words. With the number of figures of speech we throw at them, it is no surprise they seem confused when we speak. Cooper overheard a conversation in which I used the phrase “knock on wood”. I didn’t realize he had been listening and was confused myself hours later when I heard a noise that sounded like a sedated woodpecker tearing apart my home. When I finally found him, he was walking around the house with his toy hammer doing what else, but knocking on all the wood.

After a long bout with a pesky cold I confided in the boys that Mommy had a frog in her throat. With a look of I-may-be-three-but-I’m-certainly-not-crazy, Cooper said, “You don’t have a frog in your throat, Mommy. You’re silly!”

On another occasion, after preparing for a trip to the grocery store, we were half-way there when I realized I had forgotten my purse. I let out a groan and a tired-Mommy sigh, to which Cooper quickly questioned, “Mommy, what’s wrong?” My reply to him was simply, “Oh, nothing. I’ve just lost my marbles.” His effort to help resolve the situation was nothing less than comic relief: “I think maybe they are at home somewhere.”

Many times, a child’s version of a word or a phrase is nothing more than a simple case of mispronunciation. Like the day Cooper went to the park with Dad and smashed his finger in the tater tot. Or the rubber spikes that he wears with his ball suit that Brisco calls “skeets”. Or Brisco’s new favorite baseball team, the “Wankees”. And of course, who could forget the infamous “humpfire”?

Other times, it is when a child learns to think outside the box that keeps us as parents on our toes. On a recent afternoon drive, Cooper was discussing how fast he is with his new shoes. While realizing that he isn’t as fast as his dad, he pondered the thought that he might be able to keep up with Bessie, his dog. I told him I wasn’t sure, that Bessie might be faster than Daddy. He replied, “Bessie’s fast because she has four legs instead of two. Maybe I can take these legs off and get four more.”

And then sometimes, for kids of this age, their verbal funnies are simply a result of attempting to integrate the words they have learned into everyday life. I had to explain to Cooper last week why he can’t just drop his drawers in the middle of the ball field whenever the urge hits him. I used the word “privacy”, and explained that there are just some things that should not be done in front of others. He reminded me of that very fact this morning when I walked into his room to hear his brother screaming, “Let me go!” Cooper, while sitting on top of Brisco’s back, looked up at me and said, “Go away, Mom. We need some privacy.”

It always brings a smile to hear a child’s interpretation of the world in which we live. There’s nothing so sharp, so honest, so witty, so true. Kids can put us in our place with a single word. They can tell stories like the wind blows. They can create moments in our lives that we’ll recall time and again, and for generations to come. I’m glad I’m taking notes.

Until the next bit of comic relief, I guess I’ll go put some “cool on my eyes”, pull out my “short sleeve pants” and “lay out” in the “privacy” of my own back yard. On second thought, maybe I’ll just stay in and watch the “Wankees”.

And that’s All in a Day’s Work!