Punk Funnies

1. When we were staying with our friends the Garretts in California a few weeks ago, my man told me of this experience he had with the punk. I've briefly mentioned our method of trying to get him to behave appropriately on furniture by uttering the reminder, "Knees or bum!" when he tries to stand up on the couch. Anyway, the man was supervising the punk's outside playtime with the Garrett kidlets, their dad, and the dog Cruz. Daddy Garrett was showing the punk some of Cruz's tricks, including his obedience of the command, "Sit!" He was saying, "Cruz, sit!" over and over, but the puppy wasn't cooperating. So the kids joined in, "Cruz, sit!" without success. So the punk took it upon himself to give the command in a way the dog might understand: "Cruz, knees or bum!"

There are a couple punk phrases that always make me wince and look around, just in case there is a stranger nearby who might misunderstand:

2. The punk loooooves his train table that he inherited from his cousin James. Happily for me, he will spend a good hour supervising the progress of his blue engine and the many train cars that occupy the track. But when the blue engine (the one with batteries) is made to pull too many cars behind it, the load is too heavy and it becomes stuck. Frequently. All the time. So I hear this phrase frequently. All the time. "Uh oh! I suck!"

He's actually saying "it's stuck," but you wouldn't know that, would you?

3. The punk has learned to identify the American flag, and gets very excited when he sees one. He'll even put his hand on his heart (really, his tummy) and sometimes we recite the pledge of allegiance together. As the grand-daughter of a sailor who served in WWII and the sister of a Marine who served two tours in Iraq, this makes me happy. But when he points to these red, white, and blue standards, he yells, "Flag!" without the "l." I can't even bring myself to type this horrible word. I just hope no one ever hears this exclamation and gets offended that I've taught my toddler to be a complete jerk.

4. "Mac and cheese-aroni."