A Lesson in Language
(A guest post by Jeff)
These days Julia insists on putting herself in her car seat. I lift her onto the rear floor of the Bronco, and she then climbs up onto the back seat, where she always pauses playfully before surrendering herself to the car seat. This morning, I casually encouraged her to take the last step: "Come on, Julia, hop on in." She glanced at me somewhat quizzically and echoed in customary fashion, "Hop on in."
She proceeded to climb into the car seat and stand completely upright, which she often does before settling down into the seat. Then without warning she yelled "HOP!" as she jumped into the air and bonked her head on the ceiling before falling forward with a sad, startled look on her face.
Her daddy wasn't quick enough (mentally or physically) to prevent her leap, but I was at least able to catch her fall. She seemed more confused than hurt as I held her in my lap to comfort her and fumbled to explain how hop doesn't always mean hop.
2 comments:
What a great story! We had a similar experience when Jocelyn did not understand an idomatic phrase. She was about 2-1/2 years old when her dad went to a conference in England. She was very excited about his return, but grew quiet on the way to the airport. Finally she said, "I don't think I can pick Daddy up." And then I realized she thought we were literally going to pick him up!
Cheri
Hey, this is a place for things that can later be used to embarass JULIA and ANDREW, not ME!
By the way, I've showed this blog to a number of my friends who agree that your kids have to be the cutest kids ever.
Jocelyn
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