Childrenese

Every parent has a story of an adorable word or phrase their child develops as they are learning to traverse the English language. I am saddened and ashamed to admit that I have already forgotten some of those precious bits that I just knew I would cherish forever! With so much on our plates, its easy to forget some of the most amazing things at times. A couple of the most adorable words to note from the "childrenese" spoken at my house:

• Chicken - yes it is an actual English word, but my oldest, Madison, called the KITCHEN, the CHICKEN for the longest time... I cried the day she finally realized her folly and corrected herself.
• Turch - my son is a very capable, intelligent little boy, Memphis, with quite a vocabulary and no speech impediment found, however he refuses to call church, church. He still (at 5 years old) insists on calling it "turch".

Yes, at times I have thought this was silly, as we do not promote "baby talk" in our home at all. It has never been tolerated from children or adults in our home... we even asked others when our children were learning to talk NOT to speak to them in "babytalk" because we didn't want them to get confused of what the English language is supposed to sound like (to the best of our ability...we are southern Americans afterall). However, now that my children are 5 and almost 8 and there are fewer and fewer English mishaps, I am kicking myself for not recording these over the past few years! I challenge you as parents to record, somewhere somehow, your children's "childrenese". Also, take a moment to share some of the "childrenese" from your home here so we can all enjoy it!