Kids say the darndest things...

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Had another friend in college who was just an all-around character, and will never forget the time he wrote me a letter during the summer where he was telling about crossing a creek and a snake spooked his horse, nearly getting him thrown off... he wrote, "It was a moccasin (spelled correctly but X'ed out) mocassin (also crossed out) mockasin (crossed out) cotton-mouth, of course."   

[glenn kangiser]

I have this dictionary popup on Firefox, so when you all use words that are too big for me I can click it to see what you are talking about.

I'm guessing - without the dictionary, Erin, emaciated - gosh -- I even spelled it right.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

  I guess the funny way that Grandma says things has been handed down to her kids.  My mom, who is an intelligent woman, still mispronounces the words "rivalry" and "facade" because of Grandma.  She says "rivalry" with a short i sound and accents the second syllable, no matter how many times she's heard it correctly.  She says  "facade" as "fu-kade", even though she oughtta know better by now.  Even my uncle, who speaks 5-6 languages and is really highly educated,  will still ask someone to pass the I-talian dressing at dinner, and I've even heard him say "Hi-woh-ya" instead of Hawaii.

Maybe that's where my kids get some of it, too.... they come by it honestly.

[Erin]

I think "mis"-pronunciations are a different thing entirely.  My father, for example, calls a rudder a "rooder".  Many hard "s" words get turned into "sch" for him (like Steiger, which becomes Schteiger).  Grandpa and Grandma, first generation Americans spoke very little German, but they definately hung onto certain pronunciations and passed them on to their boys.

For that matter, a large portion of the South "mispronounces" a whole host of words...
I don't think it's really indicative of anything beyond the fact that we develop our speech patterns very early and consequently they're very hard to break. 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Naw, Erin, you've got that all wrong... it's the North that mispronounces everything and calls stuff by the wrong name.  Heck, even my preschoolers know that the carbonated stuff served in a glass is "Coke" regardless of what color or flavor it is.     When we had been here about 6 months, we went out to eat at a little restaurant one evening.  My daughter saw that they had Fanta Orange and asked me if it was OK just this once if she had "orange coke" and I had given her the go-ahead.  The waitress came over to our table to take our drink order, and DD says gleefully, "I'll have an orange coke."  The waitress looked totally confused.  She looked at Cori quizzically and said, "Uh... a diet Coke?"  "No!  Orange Coke."  Again the woman looked at her and asked, "Diet Coke?"  Exasperated, my daughter remembered something else she'd heard it called and tried, "Orange pop!"  The waitress looked at us like our daughter was speaking pure gibberish and so I volunteered, "She means orange soda."  The magic words... the waitress got it.    Of course, she turned right around and got my order wrong... my husband is the one with the foreign accent, yet 9 times out of 10 since we moved up north, if they're going to get someone's order wrong, it's mine...

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

My kids played outside briefly yesterday even though it was only 20 degrees and there was a stiff wind roaring out of the north... I'd seen the forecast and figured it was the only day that they'd be able to go out at all, so I let them stay out for a little while.  My youngest came in after only 15-20 minutes and was sniffling and whining all the way to the couch where she curled up inside my barn jacket to get warm.  A few minutes later, her big sister came pounding on the back door because her hands were too frozen to get the latch opened.  I let her in and she started shedding gloves, boots, coat, and insulated pants and when she hit the warm air in the dining room, she burst into tears.  She apologized for crying and said, "Mom, I'm sorry, but it's just so cold it makes me cry!!!"  I tried not to laugh at her... in truth, I feel the same way!  She made her way to the couch and snuggled up with her sister for half an hour to get warm.  The girls and DH (who'd been out shoveling snow for a few hours) all looked absolutely sunburned the rest of the day from the cold wind. 

[glenn kangiser]

That is terrible.  We have snow coming but it won't be that bad.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

They're predicting a warm up over the weekend, which will be nice if it happens.  However, I think there's rain involved.  

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I think our kids are responsible for global warming... they've been praying every single night for warmer weather.  Next thing you know, Al Gore will be wanting to make a "documentary" blaming them...

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

My daughter just gave me more material...  She was eating her lunch and looking out the window and said, "You know, Daddy is a lot like a tree."  I asked, "How's that?"  She thought about it a minute and answered, "Well... he can't make a decent sandwich."  Talk about random.

[glenn kangiser]

That's some deep thought.  Very commendable in a child.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

She's got some good ones... in the car one day, she announced, "Mom, I'm not half a Korean or half an American! And I'm not a Wisconsin-un!"  I asked her what she was, then, and her answer was, "I'm an Okie by the grace of God!!!"  That was when she was about 2 1/2... and she's come up with some good ones since, too.

Today during the ultrasound, she was watching the technician and the screen and when the tech moved quickly from the baby's head to the abdomen, DD screams, "Agh!  There's two heads in there!!" 

[glenn kangiser]

What a brainy little girl.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Last night I was sitting on the couch and my younger daughter came over to talk to the baby.  She climbs up on my lap and pushes her head into my belly and says, "Hi, Baby!  How you doing in there?  What's your tickname?"  Then she looked up and grinned and said, "He says his tick-name is Duk-soo."  (A Korean hillbilly name... like naming your kid Jethro Bodine or Billy Bob.)  My husband and I had a few good giggles over the "tick" name after she went to bed.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

This afternoon my older daughter brought me a picture she'd been working on for a while.  When I asked her what it was, she said it was "two very strange animals".  The first picture was a floppy-eared dog which she said was our dog, Grover.  The other one was a happy face with buck teeth and crazy hair, and I asked her what "animal" that was supposed to be and she answered, "Daddy."

[Redoverfarm]

A 1st grade school teacher had twenty-six students in her class.  She presented each child in her classroom the 1st half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb.  It's hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you.  While reading, keep in mind that these are first-graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!

1.
Don't change horses
until they stop running.

2.
Strike while the
bug is close.

3.
It's always darkest before
Daylight Saving Time.

4.
Never underestimate the power of
termites.

5.
You can lead a horse to water but
How?

6.
Don't bite the hand that
looks dirty.

7.
No news is
impossible

8.
A miss is as good as a
Mr.

9.
You can't teach an old dog new
Math

10.
If you lie down with dogs, you'll
stink in the morning.

11.
Love all, trust
Me.

12.
The pen is mightier than the
pigs.

13.
An idle mind is
the best way to relax.

14.
Where there's smoke there's
pollution.

15.
Happy the bride who
gets all the presents.

16.
A penny saved is
not much.

17.
Two's company, three's
the Musketeers.

18.
Don't put off till tomorrow what
you put on to go to bed.

19.
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and
You have to blow your nose.

20.
There are none so blind as
Steve Wonder.

21.
Children should be seen and not
spanked or grounded.

22.
If at first you don't succeed
get new batteries.

23.
You get out of something only what you

See in the picture on the box

24.
When the blind lead the blind
get out of the way.

25.
A bird in the hand
is going to poop on you.


                      And the WINNER and last one!   

26.
Better late than
pregnant                                                     

[glenn kangiser]

Those are good ones, John. 

[glenn kangiser]

This afternoon my older daughter brought me a picture she'd been working on for a while.  When I asked her what it was, she said it was "two very strange animals".  The first picture was a floppy-eared dog which she said was our dog, Grover.  The other one was a happy face with buck teeth and crazy hair, and I asked her what "animal" that was supposed to be and she answered, "Daddy."

That's pretty funny.  I'll bet daddy appreciates that.