Monday, July 18th, 2011

flamily lingo

posted by lizzie    « 4 Comments »    tied to motherhood, the boys, the day-to-day   

Simon often says “blanklet” instead of blanket. He says “flamily” for “family.” And sometimes we do too. It’s a show of solidarity on our part, of course. We would never mock our children’s childish slips of tongue. And Oliver’s particular way of saying “yeah” has caught on with his parents as well, at least when we are talking to him.

Those are fun little quirks that are developing in our family lingo. I imagine that in 20 years or so there will be remnants of them that pop out every now and then. Maybe we’ll always ask for a “blanklet” when we are cold, or we’ll head to the “flamily” reunion.

Those are cute little baby things, but I like something a little more substantial. Like when, last weekend, Simon said, “Mom, let’s pretend we’re playing the Loser game and I just played an eight.” We were throwing a ball back and forth, and Oliver was trying to get a turn. What did this have to do with the Loser game? In the game, if you play an eight, it skips the next person. “Oh, so you mean you want to skip Oliver?” I ask. “Yeah, and let’s just keep pretending that we’re playing eights.”

I see. He’s come up with a “nice” way of saying he doesn’t want his brother to play. Clever. If it weren’t actually mean, I would love it. In fact, I kind of hope it does become part of the family lingo.

“I’m not really feeling up to going to the store today. I’m just going to play an eight.”

“Let’s just play an eight on nursery today, since Oliver has had a bit of a cold.”

“No, you may not play an eight on dinner tonight. You have to eat it all.”

It could be fun. I like having our own secret language. What are your favorite bits of your own family lingo? Excuse me, flamily lingo?

Comments

  1. meg says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    i love your family’s language. i think playing an eight could catch on other places, too, ya know?
    jane, nearly 6 now, still calls the space needle “the space noodle.” we’re not planning to tell her anytime soon, either. for a while grey had this great way of saying, “that’s a good idea!” that any one of us will say to make the others smile. now flora is starting to get in on the action with the way she says “wowowow.”

  2. melissa says:
    July 27, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    playing and eight! i like it! clever boy!

  3. Becca says:
    August 3, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    This is great. I taught across from the speech therapist at our school two years ago and she’d tell me how her husband’s family had all sorts of inside jokes in the way they spoke. She shared a few of them with me, and I thought they were hilarious at the time. Sadly, I don’t remember them now, but they drove her nuts! I guess having studied speech in college made her rather particular about the precise use of language and it’s need to be proper. I look forward to Lydia talking and mixing things up. Simon’s playing eights is highly entertaining. Thanks for sharing!

  4. Natalie says:
    September 10, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    I think every family should have their own secret language. I can’t tell you how many times I’m thankful that I can say things to Samuel in French and feel fairly confident that no one understands what I’m telling him! ;0)

    What a great expression, that’s pretty awesome that Simon came up with playing an eight like that.

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