My Favorite Jack-isms

Now that Jack's a near constant chatterbox, he's got some wonderful phrases.  It's interesting to see him trying as hard as he is to communicate.  Generally he gets his message through.  The one glaring exception is that we're still baffled about what name he's given to the clips for my hot rollers.  He uses the same word for them every time he points them out, but we can't figure out what he's saying!  It's rather long and German-sounding in its compound name structure, which is fitting given his apparent conviction about their dual use.  I have the kind of clip that looks like an extra large bobby pin, and Jack's convinced that they not only hold the rollers in my hair (he's seen and attempted to imitate that) but that they also unlock doors.  It is not an exaggeration to say that at any given time half of our upstairs doors have curler pins sticking out of them.  

 

So I thought I'd share some of my favorite Jack-isms with you before I forget how much I love them.

"'Ere go, Momma."  Translated: "Here you go, Momma."  He says this any time he hands me anything, whether I want it or not.  Frequently he says it when handing me infinitesimally small crumbs that have fallen from his plate to the table or from his food to his carseat.

"WHOOOO! 'Nudda steet." Translated: "The firetruck went down another street."  This comes out any time we hear any kind of siren but don't see an emergency vehicle.  The second half of his statement is always said very reassuringly, as if I had been terribly concerned about the absent firetruck and he's trying to comfort me.

"Doww Pay?" Translated: "May I get down from the table to play?"  He says this with an incredibly earnest look, as if he's asking for the most wonderful favor in the world.

"Pay???  (Folds hands in prayer, makes a makeshift sign of the cross) Amen. EAT!"  Jack is extremely consistent about saying mealtime prayers.  So much so that he'll remind me to pray when we're eating in a restaurant (which brings up interesting issues for me--continue to do what we always do or avoid any outward sign so as not to seem showily pious?).  The sign of the cross is a work in progress.  Jack gets that it starts on his forehead, but after that it's generally just three taps on the middle of his chest.  Also, I'm fairly sure that Jack thinks the prayer doesn't end with the "Amen" but with the "EAT!"  We don't know where that came from.

"Jack's bah-bah NOW!"  A few months ago, in an effort to get Jack to give up his binky (I've since somewhat suspended this effort), I started saying, "It's Momma's bah-bah now!" every morning when we playfully fought for control of his prized pacifier(s).  Now anytime Jack finally finds and grabs a binky, he cheerfully proclaims that it's his.  It also serves as a template for anything else he happens to find; i.e., "Jack's new bike NOW!"

"Okay, Mommeeeee!"  It's amazing to see Jack's sense of humor develop.  He's discovered that I'm not all that crazy about being called Mommy.  I thought I would be, but somehow when he got stuck on Momma for a few months, it really grew on me and sounds so much sweeter to me now.  So any time he wants to tease me or get me to chase him, he calls me Mommeeee, squeals a giggle, and races away.

"Paygown!  Maddie, KayKay Baby, Neeeesha?"  Translated: "There's the playground!  Are we meeting Maddie and Kaleb the baby and Neesha (our friends) there?"  It's been almost a month since we've seen these friends, but Jack talks about them incessantly.  Any time we see or talk about a playground he assures me that we will see them there.  Any time someone asks where he's going, Jack will invariably answer that he's going to see them.

This is closely related to the narrative, "Choo choo, MeyMey, Phoenic, no MurrDee" in which Jack recounts his trip on the zoo train with his friends Meghan and Phoenix, an outing which his friend Murray was expected to attend but did not in fact make.

"Daddy fall down, Jack fall down, uh-huh.  Bah-daid.  Mwah!  Bad gate, bad gate! Okay, okay." This story is actually a little more complex than a simple sentence interpretation.  A few weeks ago Ben was carrying Jack over the babygate at the top of the stairs when Ben lost his balance and the two of them landed hard on the other side.  It was actually pretty traumatic.  Ben had a severely bruised knee for about two weeks and is just getting over his (irrational but no less real) guilt.  Jack bit his front lip and his cheek hard and cracked a portion of one of his teeth off.  We have yet to figure out which tooth was the damaged one, but after an emergency trip to the dentist (whom Jack had not yet officially visited), we were assured that he would be fine.  Nonetheless, it was scary and we castigated the gate when we got home.  Repeatedly.  The middle part of the sequence tells about how he got a band-aid and a kiss to feel better.

"Hey, Oh! Reh Ha Chiddy Peppa CD!?"  Jack loves those Chili Peppers.  He now asks for them by name and can sing half of "Snow."  Good mom for exposing him to many musical genres or bad mom for letting him listen to rock music at such a tender age?

"Beept, beept!" (while walking backwards)  Several months ago Jack saw a firetruck backing into the fire station and heard it beeping.  He said "Beep?" and I responded, "Yes, that fire truck beeped as it was backing up."  Now Jack thinks that the present tense of to beep is not beep but  beeped.  And he makes that noise any time anything goes backwards.  Including himself.

"Momma: Kiddy Me!" and "Momma: Sear-ly?" Translated: "Momma, you're so funny to say 'Are you kidding me!?' and 'Seriously!?' again." Last week I had several mornings during which everything seemed to go comically wrong.  Ben couldn't get one car to start, so he took the other one (which I had already filled with Jack and my thinks for the day)--finally got the other car to start and realized Ben had left without taking my purse out of his car--finally got to the tailor's where my bridesmaid dress was waiting for me (drove VERY slowly and carefully, had already paid for the alterations), and the tailor had just stepped out for a few (20) minutes.  Plus there was the day of 4 grocery stores and a disappointing tux rental visit mentioned in the last post.  Thus, a seemingly endless stream of "Seriously!?"s and "Are you kidding me!?"s spewed out of my mouth last week.

I'm now extremely grateful for having long ago decided to censor my language so that I'm now in the habit of using completely G-Rated phrases any time Jack might possibly be in earshot.  It's a good thing I've finally perfected that art, because this time Jack immediately repeated my words as if they were the funniest things ever.

But by far my favorite Jackism of all is "I you, Momma!"  He leaves out the operative L word, but the sentiment is absolutely there, and I love it.