Miasmatic Review

It's "tired"

Little kids are great fun. They entertain and amuse the adults around them. Okay, when they aren’t driving them nuts they are entertaining and amusing. When they are in that magical age where they are just learning to speak, they can be the greatest. Sure, there is a level of annoyance over the communication barrier. They say something and you have no clue what message they are trying to convey.

It starts out as English, “Dada, I want to…” but then it goes horribly wrong, some mixed up language that only the child understands. “…bregaft marka mook.” At which point the adult tries to translate. “You want to breakfast to make a poop?” The child will repeat itself, “Dada, I want to bregaft marka mook!” “You want to bring markers to mom?” Of course, this goes on for hours with no success. The child just gets frustrated and sentences come out of your mouth you never thought you would say.

On the flip side there is the child trying to imitate what you said and getting it all wrong. Such as an incident that happened to me recently when I was playing with Clone. While I was sitting on the couch, he would come running up to me. I would grab him and toss him in the air over my head. This went on for a while until my arms started to get tired. He wanted to continue to play, but I had enough. I told him no more, it was time to play something else. Clone, being the even inquisitive almost 3 year old asks, “Why?” (I really was hoping this stage wouldn’t hit for another year or so.) My response was that I was tired.

I believe my exact words were, “Because Daddy is tired.” He looks at me a second and responds with, “Dada, you’re not tarded.” Of course, I’m happy my son doesn’t think I’m retarded, but I tried correcting him. “No, tired; not tarded.” To which he responded, “Tarded!” Now, for those of you that haven’t had the pleasure of trying, you cannot change a 2 year olds mind when it’s made up. It doesn’t matter what I actually said, he is convinced the word coming out of my mouth is “tarded” not “tired”.

I will admit; there is something nice about having someone confirm that you are not retarded. Even if you know they don’t mean it