I Beg Your Pardon?

I have been having a little bit of trouble this past week in figuring out exactly what people are saying to me. I can hear them just fine, but for some reason, either the world has turned very ambiguous recently, I have been overly obtuse, or people have been saying odd things to me.

Let me share. (Please, please, let me share.)

First, I have this friend/family member who reads my blog about once every month or so, and catches up on all the missing posts. While she does this, she sends little email "missives" to me about her comments to what she is reading. Unfortunately, she usually fails to tell me what she is reading. Sometimes I can get it from context, and other times I will get something that seems very random and I will need to call for an explanation.

The other day she sent me a message that said, in essence, "My husband can check your grammar."

I'm thinking ... okay ... did I use bad grammar? Am I prone to it? (Oh, say it isn't so!) Why would she volunteer her spouse to check my grammar? Or ... is this a joke? Check my grammar as in "body check it into the wall" like in hockey? Or something? I have no idea.

Belatedly, I figured out that she was probably referring to this post where I mentioned that no one had yet had the wisdom to accept my unpaid job opening as proofreader, and she was offering her spouse as a sacrificial offering of some sort, almost certainly without asking him first. I wonder what her spouse would have said if I had accepted? That could have been soooo awkward. These offerings of our spouses to other people often work that way. You know, "My wife will be happy to have the kids over. No problem. What's another 3 or so children around the house, right?" Or "my husband will be THRILLED to redo the siding on your house. I mean, he did ours about 10 years ago. It only took two days, and we only had to redo a small part after the storm ...."

Then there was the woman we met outside the chinese restaurant after the buffet. She followed us out the door and said (in reference to Toddler), "Wow, someone must have a lot of patience with this little guy. He talks so well!"

I'm thinking, is that a compliment on his speaking ability, or a critique that he narrated his entire lunch? Even now I'm still not sure what she meant by that. She either thinks my child is wise beyond his years, or her lunch really sucked. I'm not sure I really care, though.

And then there is Toddler. Figuring out exactly what he is saying can be hard enough. For example, one night I was walking up the stairs with DH was giving Toddler a bath. I could have sworn I heard Toddler say, "I drink the water!" To which DH responded, "Oh, you are smelling lilacs? How nice."

Once we have the words down, figuring out what he means by what he is saying is sometimes impossible. The other day he came marching (literally, marching) into the kitchen, folded his arms across his chest, looked very sternly at us, and said, "I said STOP!"

Why so you did. Stop what? After about 3 days of this, we figured out he meant DH should stop hugging me. As soon as we figured that out, he began to tell us to "Stop eating!" and "Stop singing!" and "Stop 'puter!" I don't know about you, but I think this is an unfortunate thing for my child to be saying. I much prefer when he tried to tell me about "SuperGoof" on TV and accidentally called me "Supermom". I've been trying to bribe him to do it again, but he keeps saying, "noooooo!" I also much prefer when he randomly looks at me and says, "Good job, mommy!"

Now, this last part has nothing really to do with talking, but I have to include it anyway. As you may recall, Toddler had a brief but eventful fling with a girl in his music class whose mother apparently disapproves of me, or him, or both. (See story here.) I am rather intrigued to tell you that she was the underdog mom today in class for accidentally stepping on the fingers of a crawling child. While I feel bad for the child whose fingers were pinched (and who proceeded to bawl for quite some time), I felt a little bit vindicated. I'm ostracized for forgetting your kid's name, but you STEP ON CHILDREN.

Ok. I feel better now.