formerly Diane's Addled Ramblings... the ramblings are still addled, just like before, and the URL is still the same...
it's just the title at the top of the page that's new

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Oh, How I Wish It Had Been a Truck

For this week’s Writer’s Workshop at Mama's Losin' It, I chose the prompt:

Tell about a time your child embarrassed you in public.

 As an infant, my daughter Ryan was very chatty (and some things have never changed). She’d sit on my lap and tell long, animated stories, complete with extravagant hand gestures. Of course, at six-months-old, her words were unintelligible (I always say her first language was 'Ryanese'). That changed, however, at eight-months, when she uttered her first completely non-gibberish word. It wasn’t ‘mama’ or ‘dada,’ though… it was Tucker. Tucker was our dog. When she said his name, she was sitting in her high chair, tossing Cheerios at his head. At the sink, I whipped around, certain I was hearing things. Then she looked at me, pointed at him, and said it again, plain as day.

“Tucker!”

I nearly fell over. It certainly wasn’t the last time she would astonish me with her vocabulary. She has always had an affinity for words – especially big words – and, most often, she gets them right, both in context and pronunciation. Sometimes, though, her gaffes and mispronunciations are cause for giggles.

But not the time I’m going to tell you about.

There was no giggling that day.

Not by me, anyway.

She was about a year old. We were in Barnes and Noble – one of my favorite places on the planet. Because she wasn’t quite walking on her own yet (and because I didn’t want to re-shelve every book on the bottom two shelves of every aisle we were in), I was holding her. As we neared the children’s section, she got excited.

Very excited.

She was doing that baby-bounce thing very little ones do when they can’t contain their glee and pointing excitedly to a wooden cut-out hanging from the ceiling. It was Beatrix Potter’s Jeremy Fisher.

Remember Jeremy Fisher?


Cute little frog.

 Then, as clear as a bell, loud enough to be heard on the other side of the store, my sweet, angel-faced baby yelled,

FUCK!

I stopped short, praying it was a one-time outburst.

No such luck.

More bouncing. More pointing. More yelling.

Louder this time.

FUCK! Mama! FUCK!

Everyone within earshot had stopped by this time as well, and were craning their necks around and over shelves to see my sweet, angel-faced, utterly foul-mouthed baby.

By now, I was dropping the F-bomb, too… in my head. Out loud (and loudly), I said,

“Yes, Ryan, that IS a frog. Frrroooggg!

FUCK, Mama! FUCK!

Indeed.

Mortified, still mumbling clearly useless drivel about frrrrooooogggggs, I bolted out of Barnes and Noble. Without buying a thing.

(Which might have been a first.)

For the record, she got truck right on the first try.

Go figure.

12 comments:

Pearl said...

:-)

One of my nephew's first full sentences, upon seeing the abandoned spare tire in the middle of the driveway, was "Who left that fuckin' tire there?"

No lie.

Thanks for the early-morning smile, D!

Pearl

Diane said...

You are so welcome. It's nice to repay the favor! And hey, move that fuckin' tire! ;)

Just Another Mom of Twins said...

LMAO!!! I love it...too funny! The things kids say eh?

TKW said...

Ha! Barnes and Noble is such a quiet place--I'm sure every head turned at FUCK!

Re: Tucker. That was the name of a friend's little black cat when I was little. The friend was over for a sleepover and entered the bathroom just as my mother was stepping out of the bathtub, stark naked. The friend pointed at my mother's nether region and said, "Tucker!" Mom started trimming after that. :)

Betsy said...

My daughter used that same word when trying to say 'fork'. Taking her out to restaurants was always interesting!

Amy McMean said...

ahhh these are the things that make me say "i can't wait to have a little one".

Sometimes Sophia said...

Cute story. I'm sure your grandchildren will love hearing it.

Jenners said...

Too bad you weren't able to record this for posterity. I so remember Jeremy Fisher!!

hebba said...

So cute. I'm sure everyone else in the store that day had a funny story that they'll always remember, too. :)

Jen said...

Ha! Hate to laugh at another person's misery, but that is a good one!

Introverted Art said...

I don’t have children, but I remember when I was little my school mate asked her mom what were those pads she was putting between her legs. Her mom, embarrassed and not sure of what to say, told my friend that “they were for her strawberry wee wee.” A few weeks later, my friend and her mom were in the supermarket, when my friends grabbed a box of Kotex and came screaming down the aisle for everyone to hear “mom, mom for your strawberry wee wee!!!!”

Zuzana said...

Hihi Diane, what a fun story.;) But you know, now you have something to look back at and laugh at.;)
xoxo