New Verbage

Little Man has a case of the grunts.

And not the potty kind of grunts. The lack-of-vocabulary-necessary-to-have-a-conversation grunts.

He approached me today with a very passionate plea for something, of which I had no idea what that something was. He had hand motions, a rise and fall of vocal volume, and an enormous amount of grunting.

In frustration I said (so calmly), "Little Man, I sure wish you could talk like a human. It would make my life so much easier."

In comes Big Sis to the rescue.

"Oh, Mommy!" she says, "I'll teach him how to talk. I know just how to teach him new words."

Perfect.

Leave it to the 3 year old to bust out the Vocab book.

Or my latest issue of Real Simple magazine.

She climbed aboard the couch, magazine in hand, prompting her brother to hike his hiney up on the couch next to her.

She opens the magazine and begins her lesson.

"Buster, what is this? A flower pot?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now [turning the page], what is this? A kitty cat?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now [turning the page], what is this? A baby?"

"Yeah."

"Ok, Buster, last one. What is this? Is it an orange?"

"Yeah."

"No, silly. It's a tangerine."

Closing the magazine with a look of pride, she says to me, "See, Mommy, I taught him LOTS of new words so now he can talk like a human!"

I look into that Little Man's eyes and say, "Well, son, did your Sister just take you to the next level of vocabulary?"

"Yeah."

Good. Glad we got that taken care of.