The other day Maybelle and Biffle came by my office at the end of the work day, so that we could bike home together. As I was holding Maybelle, I asked her to name everybody in the room--a sort of cute and also educational strategy we engage in a lot.
"Who is here?" I asked. I pointed to myself. "Mama," Maybelle said, then, "Boppa," and "Amber," who works in the office and babysits for Maybelle fairly often. Then I pointed to Ashley, who's come to our house on multiple occasions.
"Dammit," said Maybelle.
"What?" I asked. "Her name is Ashley."
"Dammit," Maybelle confirmed. I got her to repeat the word Ashley, but that seems only to be a friendly nickname we offer. In Maybelle's mind, the girl's name is somehow inexplicably "Dammit."
Of course, we inadvertently reinforced this misnomer by laughing every time Maybelle identified Ashley that way. Claire warns that it's cute now, but once she gets to public school, we'll have to be sure Maybelle understands that the teachers there don't find swearing as adorable as we do.
10 years ago
4 comments:
This made me laugh. My daughter is non-verbal, and long ago I used to fantasize that perhaps her first word might be a curse word and I'd wheel her around to all the naysayers to have her say it!
When my daughter was young she was standing in the kitchen when I dropped a plate. It broke and I sad "dammit." A few minutes later I saw her in her play kitchen, dropping a plate and saying, "damage!" For years I let her think that was what one said when something went wrong.
O said, "You're the dammit king" to his dad the other day. Huh. He's not wrong.
Good thing you guys seem to like Ashley! If I were her I start to wonder ~ Maybe they start swearing every time I come over? :)
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