Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Because the next one you scroll to is a downer

It shouldn't surprise me that I've used that title before.

We have a certain number of made-up words that have emerged in our family vocabulary since the arrival of the boo. My favorite two may be scoobaloo, for the act of gently moving a sleeping or sleepy baby across bedsheets while attempting not to wake her (this is a very useful word in co-sleeping, which is why we invented it); and crankola, which needs no definition, except a note on its usage: one can feel crankola or be [a] crankola. Z. tends to use it as an adjective.

Gentle readers, what are your personal faves from your family (or family of origin)?

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Bonus kid conversation (stealing a page from Phantom):

Z.: I'm in da closet, Mama!

S.: I see that you're in the closet.

Z.: Are you sad dat I'm in da closet?

S.: No, sweetie, you'll come out when you're ready.

7 comments:

susan said...

"remembering slip" for bookmark (lately turned into "remembering stick" because Curious Girl made us each remembering slips from popsicle sticks last week)

"food on" for toothpick (used as a noun, as in "can you get me a food on?"

from my growing up: "I love you bup bup," which is a saying I invented and which is now used by my neices and by CG.

and "monstrosity" for playpen (I was about 18 when I realized other people just called them play pens....we had what was I suppose a big one in my grandmother's living room when I was small enough to use it, and that's all anyone called it. The monstrosity. I still remember the day I surprised my mother and grandmother in the kitchen and they said, "Oh, I didn't know you could climb out of the monstrosity by yourself!"

Phantom Scribbler said...

Bakerary, for the local bakery. That's my favorite. Though I will be very sad the day LG finally figures out that it's the "World Series" and not the "World Serious."

Also: laughing. Sometimes a closet is just a closet, eh?

niobe said...

Our nickname for my sister was WLE (pronounced like Willa).

It was short for Wicked Little Elf.

Lo said...

Two family faves: "Bubar" was my childhood word for garbage (who knows, I can't begin to imagine the etiology) and we used the word my whole childhood and young adulthood and...now. My sister was in high school before she knew it wasn't English.

We called Morningstar Farms fake sausages "hotblows"; my mom made them for us fairly often, and they were hot when served, so she told us to blow on them...

S. said...

Susan, I love the remembering slips! It sounds both magical and Freudian.

The monstrosity is also funny.

Phantom, is there a relationship b/t a bakerary and a dromedary?

Niobe, my family nickname was Shosh, which didn't stand for anything, but commemorated a younger sibling pronouncing to an adult friend of the family "My sisser's name is Shysha but I just call her Shosh." (I'll let you know if I get googled on either of those names.)

Lo, hotblows make perfect sense.

Anonymous said...

Seriously? Mind you dudelet this morning told us that he was "going to Silvia's [the childminder] with a pocket full of rubbers."

(Does this actually translate if you don't know that the Queen's English for 'eraser' is 'rubber'? Though I'm sure you do)

S. said...

(un)relaxeddad, yes!