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Warning: This post contains a cuss word. Or four. Edited but evident.
This morning as I was getting BigBrother dressed for the day, he asked to wear a pair of sweater pants. In fact, the other day when we were dressing to go play out in our abnormally warm Spring weather, he asked for a pair of sweater shorts. He obviously means sweat pants and knit shorts that have the same feel as sweat pants. And, man, I’m not going to correct him because that’s too darn cute. Sweater pants. Look for it to trend in Fall 2010.
They’ve said, made up words and mispronounced lots of things over the years. The cuteness has been overwhelming at times. Like that one time when BigBrother said he wanted to have a “rocket show,” meaning a rock show. We asked him if he was a “rocket star” and he said, “No, I’m a rocket man!” Elton John would be proud. And then there was the time he was introduced to the word and concept of email. When I told him that the sound my phone was making was not, in fact, ringing but the sound it makes when I get an email, he said, “It’s your emo phone?” Maybe. It depends on who is calling. For years, BigBrother called fire trucks woo-woos. I still do sometimes.
LittleBrother, the just-as-verbal-but-shorter version of BigBrother, has been coming up with some killer mispronunciations as of late. The laughter around these parts has been infectious. Unlike BigBrother, he doesn’t often make up words (see: woo-woo) but has some adorable ways of pronouncing things. Burn comes out with a very Bahstahn like accent: boin. Purple also has a oi sound: poiple. As BigBrother recently mastered his L-sound, LittleBrother is giving a go at it and things just tumble out of his mouth, sounding cute and funny. It was all fun and cute and innocent.
Until recently.
We were playing a rousing game of Mario Kart after supper one evening when BigBrother got the lightning bolt, shrunk everyone and announced, “I SHRUNK YOU!” From across the room, LittleBrother chimed in, “YEAH! I F*CK YOU!”
Insert pregnant pause here.
FireDad and I looked at each other and then at LittleBrother.
“Say shrunk.”
“F*ck.”
“Shrunk.”
“F*ck.”
“Sh.”
“Sh.”
“Runk.”
“Runk.”
“Shrunk.”
“F*ck.”
And then we made a bad parenting decision: we laughed. And when I say that we laughed, I mean we laughed so hard that our eyes watered. It was just so absurd! How do you get that from shrunk? He has always pronounced truck just fine which is usually a speech-tripping-block of humor for kids. So, we laughed. At that point, LittleBrother decided that he had found something that makes us happy and proudly walked around the house cussing it up one side and down the other.
Did I mention this was right before Easter? The Easter we were planning to spend with my very holy great-grandmother? Cue panic.
Thankfully he didn’t bust out with any shrinking commentary over Easter dinner. He did say it once over Easter weekend but not in ear shot of anyone who might have had an Apocalyptic, the-world-is-ending type reaction to a two-and-a-half-year-old with a teeny-tiny, sweet little voice dropping F-bombs. I mean, really, it is kind of funny to hear him, this happy little child, bust out with the F-word like it’s no big deal. But not funny at the same time.
Right now, we’re kind of avoiding the word. Shrunk, that is. We avoid the F-word itself on a normal basis, even if I step on a pointy toy fire truck in my bare feet. Thankfully the weather, until today, has been glorious so we haven’t been playing Mario Kart after supper. At first, we thought working with the sounds of the word separately, sh and runk, would help. But that first initial, rolling-on-the-floor laugh reaction has ruined him for life. I usually know better than to laugh. I am just mostly thankful that BigBrother wasn’t paying attention to the whole scenario and thus has not repeated the offending word. Yet.
Something tells me this won’t be as funny when they’re 12 and 10.
19 Responses to “Shrunk You and Other Awful Insults”
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My name is Jenna, aka FireMom. I blog here, 
Oh my gracious! Sorry but I had to laugh!! My youngest (now 11) used to call Smarties Farties. We were at Burger King once and get got SMarties in his Kids Meal. He couldn’t find them later and ran around yelling “where are my FArties, where are my FArties”. And I know exactly where you are coming from with the laughing at them. Sometimes it is SO hard to contain it!!!
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Twitter: firemom
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I will never look at Smarties the same way again.
I had some speech issues as a kid. My mom loves to tell the story of the time when our neighbor marched me home and asked mom what they were teaching me. She asked me what I said, so I repeated: “Will you sit down and have a graham cracker with me?” Except my s sound came out as sh and my gr was d… (Insert sounds and laugh.) My mom was so used to the way I talked that she did not realize at first what the neighbor was hearing!
Twitter: firemom
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Oh, oh. That’s a good one, too. BB accidentally said sit in that manner once, too. Good times with kids!
This made me laugh as well! Charlie has some speech issues and things come out so wrong sometimes. We are still wondering why this Southern boy sounds like he’s from Joizee occasionally.
My great-nephew, when he was 4, used the F word at the Thanksgiving table in front of all the relatives. In the loud 4yr old voice, he said “I told you no f***king green beans Daddy” when my nephew put some beans on his plate. It made for an interesting afternoon to say the least!
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I would have laughed, too. I often laugh when I shouldn’t. But, that was pretty darn funny!
.-= Dee´s last blog ..Raising an impulsive boy. Or, is Super Nanny available? =-.
Oh man, I cannot wait until my daughter starts talking and we get to experience this…..hilarious.
No, it is not as funny when they’re 9 and 10.
.-= Lisa´s last blog ..Our cats =-.
Katherine is really into rhyming these days. Sometimes she comes up with real words that rhyme and other times she just makes up words. A very important pre-reading skill. In the bathtub she was trying to think of words that rhyme with duck and you guessed it… her favorite was that doozie of a word. We did not comment at all for fear that she would continue to repeat it if we told her not to.
.-= Christy@pipandsqueak´s last blog ..Easter =-.
Oh, this is so funny! And so true!!!
My little guy had a hard time with the letter “R” for a long time. It was adorable! Instead of a shirt, he’d wear a “shite”, which is a slight variation of the German version of sh*t. Too funny!
Good for you for writing this down. Even when it’s not so funny when they’re 12 and 10, you’ll be able to look back at this post and laugh!
p.s. Apparently my cousin used to say “fire f*ck” for fire truck as a little boy. So typical!
I would have laughed, too. My 3 year old has some speech delay issues and has just recently started to repeat everything I say. And I mean EVERYTHING. I really need to watch it more but unfortunately I cuss like a drunk sailor. Thankfully, my 6 year old already knows better.
.-= C @ Kid Things´s last blog ..A Shit-uation =-.
I’m sorry, I totally laughed too. I laughed when I read a sentence a child wrote today, “I joow” instead of “I drew”. :p
Try working with him on shr-unk instead of sh-runk. I think the blend is actually “shr” instead of “sh”. Maybe practice with other “shr” words… shrink, shrek, shred, etc.
Sorry the teacher in me came out.
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Twitter: katie_in_ma
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It was the reverse situation for me – school sent home a note (on a day the Ex picked them up, of course) saying Bee, my 3 year old, had said the F word. She has NEVER said it and didn’t say it that night or ever – and she is the kind who wouldn’t stop if she HAD said it. Heh – try asking a 3 year old if she had said a bad word without teaching it to her!!
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Nope, sorry, no option there but to laugh. My kids both had winners like that at different times, but they usually passed quickly. My favorite mispronunciation from my daughter was “etmo” for oatmeal. My son call’s those truces that they hang signs on over highways cabooses. Not sure why. Haven’t had the heart to correct him yet (not that I could *ahem* see Dee’s last post).
.-= Lee´s last blog ..The First Weekend in April =-.
Hilarious. Kids say the funniest things. But it’s their innocence that makes it so. You’re so right that it’s not funny when they’re older. You’ll be glad in a few years you have these incidents written down as it’s so easy to forget.
Oh that is too funny!!! I mean really really funny!!! I suppose I should be glad that Big Sister says all f sounds as a p – as in peet for feet and pan for fan, etc. Even if she wanted to say the f-word (which she has never heard since we too avoid it on a regular basis) it would come out like puck. And since we are a hockey family we would probably just hand her the nearest puck and say “Here. Go play hockey.”
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So cute! We had the same problem with my nephews. They heard the word “Hoochie” one time and started calling their grandma that. It was all fun and games until they shouted it out in church one day!
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..What I love about MY south: Music =-.
ha–totally the best age for inadvertent sailor cussing. H’s is froggies…comes out **ckers!! for some reason.
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Oh my, that is hilarious! For a while my little girl would say “spoon and fork” as “poon n f*ck,” as in “I wanna poon n f*uck, Mommy.”
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