Mom Tip #25 - Language Skills

You now speak a second language.

I’m not referencing Spanish or French or any of those. Yes you may have studied those in high school or college but unbeknownst to you, you learned “Child” the minute you became a mom.

Initially you only understand Child when you hear it. When your baby says “aahh-boo” you know that means “apple.” And “lub-oo” makes your heart melt. Slowly your vocabulary grows and you begin to speak Child.

“No. No.” This is usually said with a smile on your face and is pretty direct.

But then it mutates into “NooooOOOO. No. No. Nonononono!” This is for those moments when you try to redirect with your voice and end up a rapid fire “no” machine gun as you sprint across the room to pry your toddler’s mouth open and extract 7 pieces of dog food.

Machine gun No is usually accompanied by “Aaah.” This is the Child word for “open your mouth.” However it has been known to mutate into “AaaaaaaAAAAHH! Open!” This is for those moments when the toddler has decided that watching Mom make a fool of herself is so much more fun that just spitting the dog food out and has locked down the jaws of death.

Another pair that is often seen is “Get! Get. Get. OFF!” and “Come. Coooome. Come. Come. Come (reinstall machine gun for this).” Why these two come together is still the biggest oxymoron of motherhood.

There are days when speaking Child sounds more like the sound effects track of an action movie. “Nonono’s” and “comecomecome’s” all run together and get mixed up with “ttthhhbbbttt” and “blech!”

And don’t even get me started on “Mum mum. Ah tink tink!” The only response for that one is an emphatic “eeeeeeeewwwwwwwww!”