My youngest, age 3, is our Chief Conservation and Housework Advisor, the CCHA . She does not allow anyone to leave a room with the lights on, and would rather help me clean a toilet than watch cartoons with her sister.
I'm not the kind of parent who longs for my children to return to babyhood, reluctant to allow them to grow up. I am enjoying them more and more as they get older, and I welcome every little task that they learn to do for themselves. So I've been surprised lately to be sad as I notice their speech becoming more clear, more sophisticated, old mispronunciations and grammatical mistakes disappearing as the weeks go on. Why would I be sad about this? Why would I mourn this obvious sign that they're growing up and learning to express themselves?
I certainly didn't mourn the loss of diapers, bottles, or bouncy seats. I was thrilled this year to give up the 80-point restraint carseats for simple boosters. What's going away that has me so down?
It's a language, or at least a dialect- a unique version of English with alternative vocabulary and pronunciation, spoken only in the small, distinct region of my own home. And it's dying out. The tiny tribe that calls Miss Marie Miss Arie, and special things " 'pecial keengs" is rapidly being assimilated into the larger, more influential culture around it. So, while I have no interest in blogs or magazine articles where parents share all the darndest things their kids say, I feel the need to document this unique dialect before it disappears altogether.
Long ago we lost 'pecial keengs and Miss Arie. We lost Aunt Lori being Lorlie, and yogurt as logurt. Strawberries are no longer dawbellies, and bala-loons are just balloons now. The optus has become octopus and the ipsy pie-doo is a full-blown itsy bitsy spider. Dappa was once grandpa, and the name Omi, which then became Yomi, then Nomi, is now Naomi.
Some remnants, thankfully, remain. My youngest will hold my chin and say "I want to tell you a question." Ethiopia is pronouced Epiopia, or Efiopia. And neither child, with their vocabularies, words in other languages, and full sentences, can pronounce the word "use." The Butterfly says "nooze" as in "Can I nooze that?" or "I was noozing that!" The CCHA says "ooze." The word "regular" came out "reg-le-ar" just today. "Th" sounds still elude them both, so thankfully they say "fank you" and "firty" (for thirty) or "togever."
But these little touches are disappearing fast. Soon they'll be talking like reglear people, blending into the general population, hardly distinct in their speech. Fankfully, they continue to ooze some 'pecial words, for at least a little while.
