Motherhood and Red Faces

I've always loved the mispronunciations that inevitably come as my babes have worked to wrap their tongue around all the sounds needed for coherent speech. The whole family loved it when we heard Banana Girl calling the sacrament "the snackerment", or when she'd say, "It's thoggy outside!" (foggy). We were all very sad when Girlie Whirl quit saying naybe (maybe), and Book of Mornin'. She's still says "that really ignores me." (She means annoys). We've watched them, as they grow, self correct the cute idiosyncrasies in their speech with a wistful sigh, knowing that they're growing up and we'll never again hear those adorable misspeaks come out of their mouths.

I almost never correct my children's mispronunciations. I know that they'll figure it out eventually and in the mean time, it brings a smile to all of our faces every time they speak. The big exception: Tough Guy, our oldest, couldn't pronounce ketchup. His version started with kep and the second syllable started with and sh and ended with a t. Trips to McDonald's could very quickly turn into quite the embarrassing moment as my son's innocent attempts at getting the proper sauce to dip his fries in resulted in dirty looks from other mothers. (I'm exaggerating, it never actually happened like that, but there were times when I was embarrassed by it). I always did all that I could to anticipate his ketchup needs before he asked, and we worked diligently on his ketchup pronunciation.

I think that having our children do things in public that we wish others hadn't seen is a character building moment that our Father in Heaven built into parenthood on purpose. Surely, if God has all virtues in perfection (and I believe that he does), his perfect sense of humor has to enjoy it as he watches us deal with the public embarrassment that occasionally comes with child rearing. To say nothing of the nudge toward greater maturity that these experiences tend to give us. There's nothing that helps us to be less judgemental toward other parents actions, or lack thereof, than watching an unexpected, public misbehavior of our own child.

I confess, I don't have anyplace else that this post is going. Just some random thoughts brought on today by my sister's most recent post. If you're in the mood to laugh at an embarrassing mom moment, take a look at her latest.

http://eulessnotuseless.blogspot.com/2009/05/he-did-not-just-say-that.html

Do you have an embarrassing mom moment to share?

BTW, I wish I knew how to do that thing where you write something like: "You can read about it here" with the "here" being a different color that is a link to the post. Anyone know where I can go to learn to do that?