Misquoted

Kids crack me up when they mispronounce a word. My boys (4 and 6) do it all the time. However, I find it more humorous when kids use an actual English language word in place of the correct one. My nephew, Logan (3), has been instrumental for some of these laughs this week at my mom’s.

First of all, my sister, Mindi, is expecting. (I got her permission before I posted this.) We are in dire need of some female influence on all sides of the family, so they have begun talking about girl names. If they have a girl, they have tossed around the name Savanna. However, if you ask Logan what his expected sibling’s name will be, he says her name will be “Banana.”

Today Gavin returned from a nature walk with Papa with a tackle box full of “treasures” including more acorns than you can count and two Cardinal bird feathers. When Logan was going through the box with Gavin, he referred to the acorns as “corn-nuts.” I can’t argue with that logic, but something tells me they don’t taste as good.

The other day as Logan was carefully maneuvering an obstacle course of cords and wires, he told Grant to be careful of the “tension cord.” (extension cord)

Today the boys were playing chase. Gavin and Grant have cleverly caught on to the sneaky concept of “base.” While taunting their pursuers a few paces from the safe haven, they would run back claiming, “I’m on base!” Logan, obviously not as familiar with this concept, excitedly claimed that he too, “Was in Space!”

Recently, he told my sister and her husband after they rode a trolley car that he wanted to go back and ride the “tamale” again.

When looking at his plate of chicken, tater tots, and green beans, Logan explained that he had “chicken, ‘Goldilocks,’ and green beans.” I, personally, can’t get past my own envious observation that he LOVES green beans.

One of my favorite misquotes from Logan, however, happened a few months ago when he was staying with us in Illinois for the week. One evening we went to Chuck E Cheese’s, followed by some half-witted idea I had to take all three boys, Logan (3), Grant (4) and Gavin (6), into the neighboring Toys R Us to purchase a birthday present for a party that weekend. I learned a long time ago to make the threats to my boys stern yet vague enough that I can follow through on MY terms when we are in public. Meaning, my spank bluffs got called one too many times. So, I always tell MY boys, “Do what I say, or you will be punished.” I can follow through on that no matter if it is a dirty look, time out, loss of video games or whatever. Logan, however, was unfamiliar with this threat. After the Chuck E Cheese high, the Toys-R-Us mission was ill-fated and all three boys were awful – not listening, not staying with me, etc. So, I pulled out the old. “That’s it! If you don’t stay right by my side, you are going to be punished! No more warnings!” Grant did not comply (as usual) and as I started to walk away from the aisle he was still browsing, Logan turned to him and VERY LOUDLY declared, “Grant, you had better come with us or else you are going to get PUNCHED!” He misquoted my ‘punish’ for ‘punch’ about three more times in the next two minutes. AHHHHHH! As the security guard and employees sideways glanced at me, I tried as innocently and motherly as possible to correct his misquote tenderly stating, “Punished. I said, PUNISHED. I would never PUNCH any of you.” By that point in time, I could have punched any of them.

KEEP BELIEVING