Words
Kinnell has been saying “Ma ma ma ma ma” a lot lately, and sometimes seems to be referring to me at the time. He’s laughed at the cat and said “da da da!” a few times. But I wasn’t sure he was really saying his first word until tonight.
At bedtime we were reading books. First, a book about babies that made him laugh, each new face a happy surprise. Then we read a lift-the-flap book, “Peek-a-boo Bunny.” He thinks peek-a-boo is hilarious, and lift-the-flap, forget about it. Tonight, he distinctly said “Boo” each time we opened a flap.
First word! “Boo,” sweetly said with a smile.
Raimi’s vocabulary is also growing. He asks what words mean all the time, and we’ve started to have to talk about bad words and words that aren’t bad but aren’t for saying a lot at school — like penis, bogus, snuffle-head, stuff like that.
So tonight at dinner, Kevin said, “Shoot, I forgot something…” and Raimi asked, “Is ‘shoot’ a bad word?” And I answered, “No, it’s ok. It’s not a bad word.”
Raimi squinched up his eyes, shook his head and said “But, probably you shouldn’t say shoot at school.”
Kevin said, “Well, people might misunderstand you and think you’re saying a bad word, so yeah, probably you shouldn’t say shoot at school.”
And I don’t know why but I asked, “Raims, do you know what word they might think you’re saying? Do you know the bad word that sounds like ‘shoot?”
Raimi nodded. “Uh huh,” he said. “Damn it.”