The Tiniest Minion recently turned three, and he’s become quite the talker.
Just not in English.
It’s always fascinated me the way kids speak. They have their own language, and their own name for things. What’s really funny is when you realize you’ve picked up their language, rather than teaching them yours. You start calling a pacifier a “pappy” or a “boo-boo” or whatever the kid calls it. A blankie can become a “binky” or a “lanky” or an “80/20 cotton/poly blend with ducks.” Except, of course, the child will pronounce all d’s as f’s and get you thrown out of church.
A couple of incidents brought this to mind yesterday. On the way home from daycare, we were listening to the radio and the song “Ghostbusters,” by the inimitable Ray Parker Jr., was playing. The Tiniest Minion, as is his wont, was singing along (well, sorta) to the song. I realized that every time the backup singers shouted “Ghostbusters!” in the song, the Minion would echo: “Go, mustards!”
If anyone ever creates a sports team called the Mustards, they’ve already got a fan.
That’s the fun type of Toddlerspeak. The frustrating type occurs when the Minion knows what he wants, he knows what it’s called, and he can’t make his stupid dad understand him.
Take, for example, “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The Tiniest Minion absolutely loves this movie … or, at least, he loves the last 20 minutes of it. He has trained me how to listen to him when he wants to watch it. I must admit, I was stupid at first, and he had to be quite firm with me.
We had watched “Pirates of the Caribbean” with the Tiniest Minion and the Stepminion a few days back, and both boys had enjoyed the movie. So, after a couple of days go by, the Tiniest Minion comes up to me.
“Daddy, I watch playlets,” he said.
I, of course, was bursting with pride … my three-year-old is becoming interested in the shorter works of William Shakespeare! Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of the Bard’s works (short or long) on videotape or DVD. We live in Alabama, and they don’t sell them here. The closest we get to Shakespeare is our neighbor, Rufus, who has a monster truck emblazoned with the slogan “The Beast With Two Backs.” I’ve never been brave enough to ask Rufus why that’s on his truck.
“Sorry, son,” I said. “Don’t have any playlets handy. How about we watch Spongebob Squarepants instead?” (This is what a lot of people did in Shakespeare’s time if they got to the Globe and the performance was sold out. They went next door and watched Spongebob, who was not as popular then as he is now.)
He gave me a quizzical look. “Play-lets,” he said, speaking slowly.
“Don’t-have-them,” I said, just as slowly.
He grew frustrated with me. “PLAYLETS! PLAYLETS! Wanna watch PLAYLETS!”
Things could have gotten ugly, but fortunately my stepson, who is eight and who still understands some babyspeak from when he was younger, stepped in as an interpreter. “I think he’s saying ‘Pirates,’” he said.
A light dawned. “Do you mean you want to watch ‘Pirates of Penzance?’ That’s not Shakespeare, son. I believe it’s Gilbert and Sullivan. I think you’re getting confused.”
Once again, my stepson intervened. “Do you think he means ‘Pirates of the Caribbean?’” he said. The Tiniest Minion collapsed in relief. Finally, someone he could talk with who wasn’t a moron.
So we popped in Pirates. Apparently, there was one particular section that the Tiniest Minion wanted to see. “Scaringtons, Daddy.”
I attempted to soothe him. “No, son, this isn’t scary. We watched it a few days ago, remember? Everything is make-believe. Nothing to be scared of.”
“Daddy … wanna see scaringtons. Scaringtons. SCARINGTONS.”
I’m totally lost. There aren’t any freaking scaringtons in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I am completely certain about this, even though I don’t know what the hell a “scarington” is.
The Tiniest Minion is becoming more and more insistent about seeing scaringtons, and I’m about to turn the TV off and go sell him to some wandering gypsies, when my wife, the lovely and talented Aries28, steps in the room.
“I think he means the skeletons,” she said.
Skeletons! Of course! That makes perfect sense! So I fast-forward to the last 20 minutes of the movie, when the skeletons are fighting on the ship, and the Tiniest Minion is happy. Now, when he comes to me and says, “Playlets, Daddy. See scaringtons,” I know what to do.
I remember when he was a baby, and he would cry, and we would say “I can’t wait until he can talk so he can tell us what’s wrong.” Now I’m looking forward to the day when he’s a sullen teenager and won’t speak to me any more.
