Words to Live By

It's December, and Jack Frosting is nipping at my nose.

Who is Jack Frosting? Oh, come on, you know. He's that guy who makes it cold outside, who puts the winter chill in the air. He's been only slightly re-named by my three-year-old, Tucker.

Now, let me make myself clear: I have never been one of those mothers who talks baby-talk to her kidlets. I never called a bottle a "ba-ba", nor did I ever say "binky", "wee-wee", or even "potty".

But my kids have introduced some tasty words to our vocabulary just the same... words I will probably never say correctly again. These are not words they were unable to articulate. These are words their ears simply heard in a slightly new way. And  may I say, it is my opinion they have improved upon the original.

When I was a kid, my mother made me swear never to correct my younger brother Kendall when he said the word "amblee-ance" instead of "ambulance".  As year by year his mispronunciations corrected themselves, it was the one word that remained, the last holdover from his little-boy-hood. I understood my mom's need to keep that one word sacred and safe; I never corrected him. He said "amblee-ance" until he was about 23, I think.

Addie was extremely verbal at a very young age, and continues to take great pride in expressing himself. When Tucker annoys him, he isn't merely "mad". "Mama," he says, "Tucker is antagonizing me, and it's making me apoplectic." Yep, that's my seven-year-old.

But he also still calls the center of an egg "the olk."

Somehow, he never got the memo that there was a Y in there. And I love it so much that now, I call it an olk too. I also have been to the Natural History "Musa'am", seen "The Umpire Strikes Back", and sometimes a gray day can make me feel "bloomy". These are the only words I have left from the plethora of mispronounced words in my almost-eight-year-old's past. I cling to them. I don't want to let them go. Because you see, the day when he stopped asking for "nuck" and said, "milk", my heart broke a tiny little bit. When we no longer grabbed a cheeseburger at "Old McDonald's", when his special flashlight no longer shone a "laser bean". With every word that corrects itself, a child loosens his grip around his mother's hand. He grows up, and away. Just a tiny little bit, each time. I want to take those words, cradle them in my hand, put them in a bottle, so when I twist it open I can hear the sweet, raspy sound of my sons' perfect little voices just as they are now. In the utterance of those words is a bliss so sweet it aches. And with such profound happiness comes that tightness in my chest, the knowledge that as surely as the sun will rise, I will have to say goodbye to these words, one by one. And someday, goodbye to my boys. And someday... goodbye to every sweet beautiful lovely thing.

I hate goodbyes.

Tucker is nearly four now, also extremely expressive, and thankfully he has added his own flavorful interpretations to the mix. We no longer "cut" anything around here. We "snizz" it. Why? Because Tucker calls those funny cutting contraptions "snizzors", and the first time he asked me to "snizz" something, I almost keeled over with joy. As Christmas approaches, he sings "I'm Mr. Heat Visor!" at the top of his lungs. And as I mentioned, Tucker happily announced on a recent chilly morning that Jack Frosting had come to visit us.

I glanced at Addie, who was clearly poised to correct his brother. "Addie," I whispered. "Don't tell him what it really is, okay?" Addie looked at me, and smiled knowingly. He understands too. He'll be me, someday. Grabbing onto words, silencing older siblings, holding on. Just a little longer.

But I don't mean to be bloomy.