Kitties and Dogs 2: Of Women and Socks

With the addition of two baby girls in the past two years, I've been coming to terms with the suddenly elevated levels of estrogen in the house. We have a 3-month-old, and her 22-month-old sister, RK — who is currently exhibiting her newfound "big girl" maturity by breastfeeding her dolls. I suppose I can turn to our boy cats for a little male bonding, but well, they're cats.

And then there is RK's exponentially expanding vocabulary. For starters, we're having a risqué pronunciation issue. Apparently, the "s" sound is a difficult one for the young palate to make. Most toddlers substitute a "t" sound, as RK does for the word "see," which becomes "tee." But, tee, here's the rub: it should follow that those cotton or wool things one wears under one's shoes would be "tocks." Not so for young RK — who, instead, begins that word with a hard "c."

[S]ock. As in adult male fowl, to set a trigger for firing, etc. It's also, mind you, the way she pronounces the following similar words: clock, quack, cluck, truck.

The thing of it is, when you have a vocabulary of maybe two hundred words, and your existence revolves around eating, sleeping, pooping, and getting dressed, you tend to lean heavily on a word like sock. It, "hat," "mitten," and "shoe" — which she somehow pronounces infinitely better than sock — are the only clothing words in her permanent lexicon. So as she happily sifts through the clean laundry trying to match up socks in our house of four bi-peds, she'll say things like, "Daddy [s]ock. Mommy [s]ock. Baby [s]ock."

I'm not sure how the ubiquitous parenting for dummies sort of books tell you to handle these "little kids say the darndest things" moments, but we live in Boston, and her pronunciation gives entirely new meaning to a certain ubiquitous local world champion baseball team. (She, of course pronounces "red" just fine.) In other instances, whether in public or at home, I like to occasionally humor young RK by pronouncing words the same way she does. So, instead of saying "more," we say "mao," and "dieboo" instead of "diaper." Red [S]ox? Not so much.

And this [s]ock business only serves to underscore the fact that among the words one is curious to learn at that age is — well — what to call the thing between one's legs.

With all due respect to Eve Ensler, vagina's just not a word I use a lot. OK, ever. Rather — with heartfelt thanks to an ex-girlfriend and her sister — I prefer the term they used growing up: wahine. It's Hawaiian for woman, which is a nice, strong image, it rolls smoothly off the tongue, and well, it's not vagina. In any case, it's what I call it. Even to my wife. Who rolls her eyes in a way remarkably similar to my own when she refers to my hockey socks as leg warmers.

I realize vagina’s a proper medical term and all, but so is “bowel movement” and doctors don't even use that anymore. (It’s as if there was some sort of medical Vatican II a few years ago wherein it was decided that “poop” would heretofore be the officially-sanctioned term of record.)

Mind you, when I get out of the shower and RK points inquiringly to my naked midsection, I say, "That's right, daddy has a penis, because daddy's a boy. But you and mommy and your sister are girls, so you have a wahine." Double standard? Yes. Do I care? No.

Sorry, RK- you and your mom and baby sister can have your little Our Bodies Ourselves rallies to your hearts' delight as you grow older. Me, well, I do have the cats on my side. C'mon boys, join me: have a couple beers in the old sweat lodge, get a little drum circle together, scratch yourselves. Rock out with your sock out!

Comments

[Susan]

Thanks for the link Ben. Congrats on the addition of RK.

Best, Susan

[Keith]

While it's true that BK doesn’t use the word “vagina” a lot, he had a certain familiarity with it throughout college.

[kathryn]

Well you should try walking down the street with small boys who are screaming "f(tr)uck" every time they pass anything bigger than a bike!
Nice writing!
Kathryn

[KFL]

Our M. learned the word 'vagina' and the word 'laryngitis' on the same day, at a little older than your RK. A few months later, she woke up clutching her throat and claiming trouble with... well, you can figure this one out. It took her years to uncouple these things, and she never did understand my utter spluttering helplessness whenever those words came up...

BTW, love your blog!

KFL

[BK]

Kitty- I too apparently loved the word "fruck" as a tyke. And Kay- That's the best word mix-up I've heard yet. God bless young M; she's a sass monkey.