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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

English; making learning a new experience

There are sooo many different conversations that you can have with your children when you're in the car.  Often times you're not even sure what it is you're talking about but a lot of "uh huh's" and "oh yeah?" come out of your mouth as you attempt to pay attention to the road as the kids in the backseat go, "Mommy, Mommy, Moooommy!"


Sometimes the conversations are not only memorable, they are worthy of being written down.  This is between me and Sunshine.


Sunshine:  "Mommy?"  It's probably the third or fourth (or seventh) time they've said my name and asked the question, but I was trying to drive.


Me:  "Yes?"


Sunshine:  "Why do they call it a stampede?"


Me:  "What?"  Because I couldn't have heard it properly, why on earth would they think I knew why they called it a stampede?


Sunshine:  "Why do they call it a stampede?"


Me:  "I don't know.  Because the person who wanted to name it thought it sounded like a good name?"  Which is really mostly true.  Someone had to name it and someone had to think it was an appropriate word.


Sunshine:  "NOOO!!!  I want to know why it's called  a stampede?"


Me:  *sigh*  "I have no idea.  Why do you think it's called a stampede?"


Sunshine:  "Is it like they're peeing on the toilet?"


Me:  "Huh?"  It's the exact word too.  Where on earth does she get her reasoning?  She tends to come up with some very odd explanations of things and sometimes asking her to explain is even more confusing.


Sunshine:  "Is it like they're peeing.  You know, maybe they're sitting on the toilet, peeing."


Me:  "Why would you think that?"


Sunshine:  "Because of the name."


Me:  "The name?  Where do you get that from?"


Sunshine:  "You know."  Because saying 'you know' makes it all make sense.  "Like the name, stampede.  Like peeing on the toilet."


Me:  It suddenly dawns on me.  Stampeed.  Not stampede, but stampeed.  Like stamp-peed, like peeing on the toilet.  I laugh, "No, it's not like peeing on the toilet!"  It just means they're running.


Sunshine:  "Maybe they're peeing when they're running."


Me:  "No, probably not."


Sunshine:  "Because that would be pretty funny, if they were all peeing when they were running."


Me:  I make the mistake, "No, it would probably be pretty gross."  'Gross', a child's invitation.


Sunshine:  "Maybe they would be running and peeing and they would all be like, 'Aaahhh, we're all peeing!'"


Monkey:  He's been quiet for most of this.  "Then there'd be pee everywhere!"


Sunshine:  Breaks in to a 'pee' song.  It goes kind of like this: Pee, pee, pee, pee, pee.  You get the idea.


Monkey:  He decides this is a good song and sings along.


They both continue to sing the pee song until we get there, 10 minutes away.  They are both laughing hysterically and Sunshine is practically crying she thinks this is so funny.


In case you are wondering where she learned the word 'stampede', it was on Martha Speaks
on PBS.  It's a great TV show that the kids learn all sorts of vocabulary, that particular day happened to have the word stampede.  See, this is what happens when you let your child watch education television, you end up listening to pee songs in a small, enclosed vehicle.  Thanks PBS.

Vicky

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