It was a pretty typical night around the supper table tonight. All of us had just returned from the YMCA, and Kim had prepared a delicious fish dinner for us. I supplemented her fish offering with a little fresh venison, grilled to perfection (thanks for the suggestion, Paul!) As we ate, Kim asked each of the girls what they liked most about their time at the Y.
Annabelle paused for a moment, then simply said, “to exercise…”
We’ve been working with her, trying to get her to use more words, to express her thoughts in complete sentences. So after a little prompting, she turned out a nice sentence, and we moved on.
Somewhere in the conversation, Josie dropped a gem on us. Now, there is no need to ask Josie to use more words. She and Annabelle are just about polar opposites when it comes to word use. In fact, there are lots of times when we have to give Josie the “shush” just so that others can get a word in.
At any rate, Josie was talking about school and friends and fish and her legs having muscles and those same legs being “mush” after her workout…phew. She stopped to take a breath, then got back in the flow. I should say that she doesn’t get all of the American phrases exactly correct, but we’re usually able to make sense of what she’s getting at.
With a huge smile on her face, she looked at Lilly and said, “Get your butt and come over here!”
For whatever reason, it struck us all as funny. Kim’s mom has long been a mangler of phrases, and Kim’s sort of prone to the occasional malapropism, too. I guess it must run in the family.
But I’m glad that Josie isn’t afraid to try new phrases. This English language is pretty tricky. I’m sure that the day will come when the girls don’t stumble over translating things in their heads, working out tricky helping verbs, and things like that. But until that day comes, we’ll take her bungles; that’s close enough for our family!
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