In light of it being Mother’s day today, here is my very favorite and most funny story from my kids’ lives.
My youngest came along in 2000. (Such a convenient year for trying to remember the birth years of 7 children.) He was and is still to this day the delight of our family.
Being the youngest, we had the baby thing down. See, in the north when your baby is a year and a half old and it is winter, you have to do something to get out of the house. Our favorite past time with #7 was to take him to the mall and walk him around in the stroller. Since he had two older sisters who had their driving license we would ship him off to the mall with whatever adult was free to quiet his typical toddler angst.
He was of course learning how to talk but he had a particular speech impediment that I have heard from other children but none of mine had had to that point. He would substitute FU for TR or SHR. For instance this made a Fire Truck sound like Fire F**k. Quite comical to his older siblings.
This particular year turned out to be the year that Shrek had just come out on DVD. All his siblings were enamored with this film and our discontented toddler could be counted on to be content while it was playing. We played it A LOT! I can quote large passages of Shrek better than most Bible passages. (Any parents out there give a witness?) (I also have large passages of Veggie Tales, The Little Mermaid, The Emperors’ New Groove, Aladdin and Toy Story memorized – just to name a few. Oh, if only Masters Degrees in Disney Movies could be bequeathed.) So as his vocabulary expanded from Ma Ma and Da Da, his favorite character was one of his first words.
Now you need to know that his speech impediment, added to his devotion to Shrek, caused there to be a bit of a stir in my house because, of course, when he wanted to watch his favorite movie he would begin screaming, “I want F**k, I wanna watch F**k. We would giggle and like good parents of the 7th child, we would watch F**k again with him for the 4th time that day. (Do not even try to judge me...I was home shcooling! :0)
Now, back to the mall. The movie store decided to promote the next Shrek movie with a full sized cardboard cut out of Shrek and his sidekick “Donkey.” Our child, upon delightedly seeing life sized cutouts of his most favorite characters, stood straight up in his stroller yelling and pointing at the top of his lungs, “F**k – n – Donkey!!!! F**k – n – Donkey!!!! (You need to say this aloud, slurred together to get the full effect.)
The mall went silent. It seemed as if even the insipid mall music ground to a halt in horror. Everything went into slow motion as all heads turned in our direction. And like good parents of a 7th child we were …….embarrassed……dismayed…..shocked…..well, nooooo ……. if you want to know, we were on the floor laughing, unable to form a coherent thought to try and quiet our potty mouthed one year old.
No flowers on Mother’s day will give me more delight than being able to tell this story again.
My youngest came along in 2000. (Such a convenient year for trying to remember the birth years of 7 children.) He was and is still to this day the delight of our family.
Being the youngest, we had the baby thing down. See, in the north when your baby is a year and a half old and it is winter, you have to do something to get out of the house. Our favorite past time with #7 was to take him to the mall and walk him around in the stroller. Since he had two older sisters who had their driving license we would ship him off to the mall with whatever adult was free to quiet his typical toddler angst.
He was of course learning how to talk but he had a particular speech impediment that I have heard from other children but none of mine had had to that point. He would substitute FU for TR or SHR. For instance this made a Fire Truck sound like Fire F**k. Quite comical to his older siblings.
This particular year turned out to be the year that Shrek had just come out on DVD. All his siblings were enamored with this film and our discontented toddler could be counted on to be content while it was playing. We played it A LOT! I can quote large passages of Shrek better than most Bible passages. (Any parents out there give a witness?) (I also have large passages of Veggie Tales, The Little Mermaid, The Emperors’ New Groove, Aladdin and Toy Story memorized – just to name a few. Oh, if only Masters Degrees in Disney Movies could be bequeathed.) So as his vocabulary expanded from Ma Ma and Da Da, his favorite character was one of his first words.
Now you need to know that his speech impediment, added to his devotion to Shrek, caused there to be a bit of a stir in my house because, of course, when he wanted to watch his favorite movie he would begin screaming, “I want F**k, I wanna watch F**k. We would giggle and like good parents of the 7th child, we would watch F**k again with him for the 4th time that day. (Do not even try to judge me...I was home shcooling! :0)
Now, back to the mall. The movie store decided to promote the next Shrek movie with a full sized cardboard cut out of Shrek and his sidekick “Donkey.” Our child, upon delightedly seeing life sized cutouts of his most favorite characters, stood straight up in his stroller yelling and pointing at the top of his lungs, “F**k – n – Donkey!!!! F**k – n – Donkey!!!! (You need to say this aloud, slurred together to get the full effect.)
The mall went silent. It seemed as if even the insipid mall music ground to a halt in horror. Everything went into slow motion as all heads turned in our direction. And like good parents of a 7th child we were …….embarrassed……dismayed…..shocked…..well, nooooo ……. if you want to know, we were on the floor laughing, unable to form a coherent thought to try and quiet our potty mouthed one year old.
No flowers on Mother’s day will give me more delight than being able to tell this story again.
20 comments:
Oh my gosh Barbara - You have my entire family in stitches with that! Hysterical.
My youngest has speech issues too so I completely sympathize...but I don't think we ever had anything that funny. I hope his future wife appreciates that story some day.
And I understand about knowing parts of Disney movies and Veggie Tales better than the Bible. What about The Lion King, A Goofy Movie and Lilo and Stitch? The Wiggles? Blue's Clues?
Sigh.
Now I have to know the lyrics to rap and heavy metal songs (to determine their appropriateness) and know which animé shows aren't adult in nature.
Ah, yes, when they are young their job is to embarass the parents, when they are older it is the parents' job to embarass the children.
Great story! Great laugh! I am sure Father was laughing, too.
That is hilarious! It reminds me of the time when my son was in kindergarten and got in trouble because he and the principal's daughter were standing in line giving each other the finger. They had no clue what it meant.
That is...ummm..."shrekin'" hilarious!!! ;)
And yes, since we have a new toddler in our home (she just joined our family two months ago as we go through the process of adopting her), Veggie Tales is definitely something that I'm memorizing very quickly.
Fun, fun, fun! :)
Great story! I bet you're glad that was the 7th kid, not the first!
thanks all, maybe I'll start a "funnies" section for Sundays ;)
Maria - yep by the 7th kid you know it really is ok to laugh
Thanks for the laugh Barb!! "Beware the groove" :)
Tag! yer it!
Smiling. Thanks. I'll never look at Shrek the same... ;-)
Oh, we cracked up over this! My kids never did that particular impediment... but I did learn very quickly that you should not teach children the word "funky". Nuff said.
Thanks for this great story! I agree with katherine... I'll never see Shrek the same again.
:)
HW
huh-larious. my oldest son had a similar speech impediment when he was very little, and some friends of ours delighted in getting him to say "pumpkin ice cream" which always came out "f--in ass cream". I'm there with ya, sister.
Tina, I'm reading your blog as we speak. I just read the one where you are talking about our children having to go through their own crisis of faith. really Brilliant! Can I ask how old are your kids?
Hi... I've been reading your blog for a little while but I don't know if I've yet left a comment. I think I found your blog through a comment on the lifestream blog.
Anyway... I just had to comment on this. My son used to say exactly the same thing instead of truck. :) It first came out when he got a fire f**k for Christmas. It had everybody cracking up, that's for sure.
With our two kids (now 7 and 9), I can also relate to having large chunks movies and TV shows ingrained on my mind for all eternity. I still find myself bursting out into Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy, for no apparent reason and also saying, "And in the morning, I'm making waffles!"
Joel, welcome!! Glad to meet you. Thanks for leaving a comment. Wait till your kids get to be teens. Our dinner table sometimes degenerates to Movie one liners that have us all laughing. My poor parents, when they come over for dinner are left out in the cold as they don't have those reference points.
LOL!!
Oh, my. Ohmyohmyohmy . . .
Okay . . . have my breath back . . . thank you.
Hilarious! I still remember my niece unable to say "fish". Always came out "shith". She was the only kid I knew with goldshith.
Reading the comments reminds me of the time my oldest sister was trying to get one of her young ones to say the "s" sound.
They were having soup, and her daughter kept calling it "foup". My sister carefully said "soup" and the child said "foup".
So my sister said, "Look -- s-,s-,s-,s-, soup", to which my niece responded, "s-, s-, s-, s-, foup"!!
Oh my gosh Barb, I almost wet my pants! I had forgotten about that. What a proud moment for you and Marsh. Go Treybee.
BF
Oh. My. Goodness! Barb, I'm just rolling on the floor coughing, it's so bad...
And Tina, with ""pumpkin ice cream" which always came out "f--in ass cream"" -- I almost passed away on that one.
No speech challenges with my three boys, but they do tend to flip the world off ... and that finger seems to need more band aids than any other.
And yes, all the movie lines... What about Ice Age. Any time someone takes the last of anything, we say "the last mellon".... And the boys were talking about camping out in the gazebo and "telling manly stories" (Donkey to Shreck).
My youngest did, however, mix up the words to Felice Navidad and was singing Felice Ladeedah -- which I didn't realize I said so often until that day!
Humor...what a delight! My sides are hurting....
Oh gosh that brings back memories. I once had my friend's 3 yr old son in the crowded hospital waiting room and there was a basket of suckers on the counter. He sees them from across the room and starts crying out, yes, you guessed it, "F*CKERS! WOOK AT ALL DOSE F*CKERS!"
I wanted to die and nearly did as I got the icy cold stare of disapproval. The whole room started to laugh when I walked over, grabbed a candy and said, "I wish his daddy had taught him they were lollipops instead....."
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