Kids Say the Darnedest Things ... If You Can Understand Them

Before I had a kid, I always assumed that parents could instinctively understand what their toddlers and preschoolers were saying. I could never understand the words coming out of other people's kids' mouths, but I was reassured watching the parents respond.

I was tricked.

You all were just smiling and nodding, thinking, "I have no idea what you just said, kid."

My own daughter started talking at 18 months and it escalated fast. Her first word, aside from "dada", was "doggie", but it always sounded more like "da-hee". Still, when she's saying it and pointing to a dog, you kind of know.

Other words, not so much.

Her: "We go dassee pop."

Me: "Ohhh-kay?"

Her: "Otay!"

Me: What did I just agree to?

It's even worse in the car. My daughter still faces backward in her car seat because she's three pounds lighter than the legal minimum weight for forward-facing car seats in the state of New Jersey. (No, height doesn't matter.) So whenever she talks, her voice travels to the back of the car instead of to the front of the car where I am driving because even though I live in New Jersey and am a wife in New Jersey, I am not a Real Housewife of New Jersey and don't have my own driver.

My daughter gets so upset if she has to repeat herself more than twice. And she always does because I can NEVER hear or understand her, so car rides are a lot of fun.

Her: "I won dickey son."

Me: "What do you want, sweet pea?"

Her: "I won dickey son."

Me: "I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Can you speak louder?"

Her: "I WANT DISNEY SONGS RIGHT NOW!"

You can imagine when happens when I tell her I don't have Disney music in the car...

Sometimes I CAN understand her, but I have no idea what she's talking about. When we play outside on the deck, she's started going to the corner and saying that we've arrived at the "bigness". She'll look through the slats of the deck and then say that we can't go in. And is that a good thing??

Just the other day I gave her some raisins as a snack, and she told me that Timmy Thomas liked raisins. "He's my friend," she said.

"Is that someone from daycare?" I asked.

She nodded. But this is the first time I've ever heard her mention Timmy Thomas, and we've heard all about her daycare/preschool BFFs John and Logan. (No last names for them, though, so Timmy Thomas must be pretty special.) John and Logan hit her with a water bottle, so they are obviously very good friends. It was only once, so maybe my kid is really good with forgiveness. Or maybe that story isn't real - just like Timmy Thomas. When my husband asked if Timmy had purple toes and blue hair, he received affirmative responses.

The more I hear my daughter talk about the same things over and over again (thank goodness for preschooler repetition), the more I'm able to at least decipher the words. I'm just glad she can use words now to tell us what she wants instead of the random "I'm a baby crying - you'll figure it out" stage.