Stories from the Frontline of Fatherhood: December 30, 2005
My son gave me a surprise geography lesson the other day. At least that was what I was thinking when he popped into my office, put something he had in his hand toward me and said, “I got Yemen, dad.” This kid is young, but smart, so I quizzically looked at what he was showing me, thinking it might be a small, rough cut out of a country on the Arabian Peninsula. As we encourage the kids to encounter geography, this seemed pretty plausible especially given how eager he was to share with me.
As I looked closely, though, I saw that this boy was proudly showing me that he had a ‘lemon’ candy, not a model of Yemen. Oh well, life is sweet in many forms. The lesson in geography quickly turned in to a lesson in enunciation where that slippery ‘LLLLL’ sound is practiced without moving the teeth. Most of my kids, at some point grappled with this and a couple of others letters. Usually, they just out grew it without too much lost in translation.
Most of the time, context guides my translating, but in this instance as well a few others, context wasn’t helpful until I had more information. For instance, our Christmas tree is decorated with many store bought as well as carefully designed, child crafted ornaments. One of the child-crafted ornaments attempts to proudly summarize the holiday spirit with the neatly scripted refrain: “Nowell, Nowell, Nowell…” Perhaps the wise men had such a hard time finding water on their journey that it inspired an alternate song capturing their arid attempt to pay homage to the fountain of life. If these little ornaments weather well, maybe their authors will find them equally humorous at a later more mature time. Presently, it is a quiet, yet funny, reminder of how amazing it is that in a few short years, kids move beyond these unintended puns to master, to greater and lesser degrees, a complex and unruly system of speaking, reading, and writing.
So, the next time you hear a kid say, “I yike yams daddy.” You’ll know that he would probably like some sweet potatoes for dinner…or maybe he just thinks that Mary’s little lamb is a nice, kind creature.
