Funny Words

Miss M has started putting small phrases together, and her vocabulary has just EXPLODED.

She's starting to really parrot everything that is said, especially me. I've had to really watch what I say, lest she start walking around saying the s-word everywhere. (That happens to be my personal favorite cuss word, my go-to when things aggravate me.)

Last night, for example, at dinner, M was refusing to eat her sweet potatoes, so I pointed at her plate and said, "eat that!" To which she promptly replied, "Eat tat!" and poked her finger in her food.

In addition to watching what I say, I'm having to learn an entirely new language. I couldn't understand why M kept saying "huh?" until I heard myself repeating that word over and over when she would say something I couldn't comprehend.

Like this morning. As I put her in her car seat, she kept saying, "boody! boody!" I said, "take your passy out, I can't understand you." She pulled it out and said, "booty! booty!" To which I replied "huh? wha? say it again!" Finally, she got frustrated, blew out a big breath, and said, "BOOTY SINGIN!"

Oh...."birdie singing."

I wonder if Google Translate has a "toddler to English" version?

~CSM

Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

Today's tornadic weather conditions have me reflecting on one of my biggest fears of life: inclement weather.

I was traumatized at a young age by watching "The Wizard of Oz." What should have been a lighthearted romp through the dreams of Dorothy fostered the hot mess that would become my storm phobia.

As a child, I was scared of tornados (tornadoes?). As an adult I'm petrified of them.

The very destructive nature of these awful things is what scares me the most. I don't worry so much about my underwear ending up in the neighbor's tree so much as I worry about ME ending up in the neighbor's tree, broken, battered, and bleeding. To say NOTHING of worrying that my tiny helpless defenseless child gets ripped from my arms and into the swirling vortex of destruction that dropped out of the sky like a surprise party gone horribly wrong.

Melodramatic much?

I have been pretty good with these storms as of late, but it's also been winter. HAHA. Now that I'm a mom, I'm having trouble finding a balance between being scared out of my wits and not showing that fear to M. So far, she's been too little to really interpret the fact that I'm terrified, and only once have I gotten her out of her bed to sleep in the house's half-bath. (My next house MUST have a basement.)



Inevitably, these storms almost always arrive just in time for me to be the only adult in the house with M, as my husband is usually on duty for his 24-hour stint. At least when he's home there's one rational parent in the house. I'm afraid that if we have a particularly bad spring this year, poor M is going to realize the full extent of her mom's crazy, or worse, develop her own personal phobia of twisters. I may have genetically passed on my worst traits to M, like my temper, my impatience, and lack of ability to be out in the sunshine without SPF80, but I'm hoping to save her from this particular impairment.

So I have to play it cool around her from now on. Unless K is home, and then I can leave her with daddy while I fall apart in another room.

~CSM