The Whole Fam Damily

When I was in college, I learned about Spoonerisms…little twists of language that make ordinary phrases comical. At the time, the most popular ones were those that mixed up curse words…like, “You bun of a sitch,” or “Go buck a fuffalo.” Spooner was apparently some guy who coined some funny ones, like "The Lord is a shoving leopard" (loving shepherd, that is). Well, he must have known a toddler. As E’s vocabulary grows, Spooner-ish things are creeping in, and boy do they crack me up.

If you can’t find E, look behind the door to her bedroom. You may find her there pretending to drive a car, using a piece of string as her “belt seat.” And the little bump on her arm is a “bite gug.” When she gets excited asking for a drink, she asks for her “sicky puck.” (That’s ‘sippy cup.’) But the best mix-up of all came last night, when Grandma Millie-moo said, “E, you’re so smart you could be president some day.” I wasn’t sure if E knew what Grandma meant, so I asked her, “E? Do you know what the president is?” She confidently answered, “Yes!” “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me what the president is.” “It’s Santa,” she said, and went back to wrapping Dee-Dee in her blanket. Huh? At first I thought she meant that Santa was the president, which would be funny enough, but further discussion revealed what she was really thinking…Santa comes at Christmas and leaves presidents under the tree.

So what do you want for Christmas? A McCain, or an Obama? Me, I’ll take a Nader, preferably in green.