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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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June / July 2006 Contest Results |
I'd Like
To Buy An R, Please
By
Winter Prosapio, Texas
"Mommy! I'm a bidj! I'm a bidj!"
She's smiling and giggling, squirming excitedly in her car seat.
"What?" I ask her, trying to buckle her in while she's squirming.
"I'm a bidj!"
Right then I stop what I'm doing and mentally play back what she just
said. Did my darling little curly haired 2 and half year old just refer
to herself as a female dog?
"You're a what?" I ask her, plastering on my patient mommy smile.
"A BIDJ" she shouts with great enthusiasm.
"What did she say?" my husband stops putting things away in the garage
and comes around, having over heard her. He had a look of grave concern.
"She can't mean that, right?"
Of course instantly we are mentally blaming the other for our daughter's
sudden language acquisition. I'm thinking this is his fault—no doubt
he's called our own female dog this in front of her. He's thinking my
recent outbursts of an occasional "s" word lately indicate that I've
been slipping in the forbidden language department. None of this do we
speak out loud, we merely shake our head.
We decide against addressing the word with our youngest directly since
we've learned that any strong response would most likely result in the
word being shouted out at every inopportune moment. I could just see her
proclaiming herself "a bidj" every time I dropped her off at the
church's mother's day out program, her pre-K teacher's smile fading as
the rest of the two year olds in her class promptly shouting that they
too are "bidjes." No, I'd just smile and pray that this was only a car
seat declaration.
This goes on for a week, until our six-year-old solves the mystery.
We're on our way out for a day of errands.
"I'm a bidj!" she tells her big sister with great delight.
"That's right, you're a bridge," her sister replies with a bored air.
"What? What did she say?" I almost leap out of my seat.
"She's a bridge. See?" Her sister gestures to our toddlers socks.
Sure enough, my two-year-old's little chubby legs are perched on the
console in front of her car seat, toes stretching out to reach it,
forming a bridge.
I am definitely looking forward to her acquiring that R sound. The
subtle nuances of language acquisition are not easy to explain to
perfect strangers in the grocery store who look like they've got Child
Protective Services on their speed dial.
http://www.winterdprosapio.com
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