Catechization: Pre-K Vocabulary

The Bella has curly hair, and whenever it’s time to comb it out, the tangles make it a bit more painful than either she or I would like. So, when she was younger, I tried many ways to distract her from it, and found a magic routine.

I brush her hair, and make all kinds of comic book fight sounds. ‘Pow!’ ‘Bang!’ ‘Zap!’ along with some ‘ow’s’ to make it seem like I’m behind her in more pain than she is. I tell her that her hair is trying to fight me, and that brushing hurts because I’m fighting it back. So, in order for it not to hurt anymore, she has to tell her hair to stop kicking my ass. The whole thing makes her laugh, but nothing more than getting to say “Hair, stop kicking my mommy’s ass!” By the time she gets that out, the tangles are gone, and I’m finished. She knows it’s a joke and that her hair is as an unwilling a victim as she is, but she enjoys getting to say that ‘grown up word’ all the same. Saves us both a lot of hassle. A bit unorthodox, I’ll admit, but it works.

This is our thing, and not indicative of how she normally speaks. This kid will scold you if you say ’shut up’ or ’stupid’. She realizes what words are alright for children, and which words aren’t. She doesn’t go around hurling out swear words. Unless she’s instructed to. Which, now that her father isn’t in the home, is much less.

It bothers me more the crap she picks up from the little bit of Nickelodeon she watches during dinner. Things like ‘So?’ or ‘And?’ or ‘skunksack.’ Ugh. Damn that iCarly.

We have a new rule in the house: she’s not allowed to say a word before asking what it means if she doesn’t know. No matter what the word is, just in case it’s not a word appropriate for children. We have this rule now because she loves words. She always has. Just after she’d turned 2 and Ari was born, she was in the bathroom watching me flat iron my hair and said “Mommy, your hair is different.” I asked what different meant, meaning did she think it was good or bad. She looked at me, obviously exasperated, and said “Different means changed mommy.” in the most duhhhhh tone of voice possible. As if I was utterly ridiculous for asking.

Yesterday she told me “You are very volatile.” Pretty true statement, granted, but when asked if she knew what volatile meant, she clammed up and muttered no. I reminded her of the rule, and then explained  that it basically meant ‘unstable’.

Later on, while reciting the words from Humpty Dumpty to Goobie, she ended the story with “Humpty Dumpty was very volatile. That’s why he kept falling. Because he was unstable.”

We’re going to work on the different meanings of volatile/unstable this week.

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