Revenge of the Nathanisms

Most kids say funny things when they are young, but of all my kids, Nathan is the one whose language choices made me laugh the hardest. Matthew inspired lots of laughter as well, but he did funny things. Nathan is the one who said funny things. His toddler-esque turns of phrase were so hilarious that in his linguistically formative years, he had his own sidebar on the blog dedicated to “Nathanisms.”

As a toddler, he called flip flops “boo bops” and instead of antlers, reindeer had “reindeer sticks” and unicorns had “unicorn pokers.” He shared a room with Daniel and slept in the bottom “bonk” bed. Joseph Smith saw to “jelly beans” (heavenly beings) shining brighter than the sun. He knew that a “Barbie” (barber) shop was where you can shred your hair. And his penchant for the sciences began to show when he complained about a stinky smell on the school bus and told me that he wasn’t smelling it, but the molecules kept getting in his nose.  He also understood the importance of an education because he explained, “The more I learn, the more tighter my brain gets screwed in.” And perhaps my favorite Nathanism of all time: "We made a snowman without any parts. Just the balls."

Nowadays, he has a tendency to play with language, loves long words and describes himself (very appropriately, may I add) as verbose. When the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary app quite sending him a notification with the word of the day, he was bummed. He has become such a wordsmith that I’m always proud of myself when I toss some vocab his way and discover that I know a word he does not. Earlier this year I called all my boys a bunch of troglodytes. He had to look it up, but now he uses it regularly. He is in high school, so the word is appropriate on many different occasions and I can rest assured that at least once in a while, I still know stuff that he does not. 😉

Earlier today, Nathan crafted yet another phrase that made me laugh out loud. There’s been some drama amongst the high school Drama Officers (Ironic, right?) and since Nathan is one of them, he often finds himself caught in the crossfire. In the wake of the latest bit of havoc caused by their general lack of advance planning, Nathan called them all turd buckets. He then proceeded to qualify that with, “Excuse my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints swear words. I was going to say Mormon swearing, but that’s wrong.”

I may not be quite as memorable as the snowman without any parts, but it was still funny!

A Return to Nathanisms

We are going on vacation soon and this evening we were discussing seating arrangements for the drive. As we made some decisions and the conversation wound down, Nathan said, "The whole time we're in Seattle, will we want to wear pants?" Kev and I completely lost it. I was laughing so hard I was crying. Yes, I know exactly what he meant (long pants as opposed to shorts) and that he was probably planning to actually say something about shorts, but he paused...and it was hilarious. Funniest thing I've heard in weeks. :-)

Do I Really Want To Educate My Children?

I have no idea what they were talking about, but I overheard Nathan tell Daniel the following: "The Scientist way to say butt is rectum."

{sigh}