Just before leaving for preschool one morning a few weeks ago…
“Momma, mah-key kag-roo pak-pak pwease.”
“You want monkey and kangaroo in your backpack?” I asked. She doesn’t have a stuffed kangaroo so I was confused and my repeating her request wasn’t just to have her hear the words pronounced properly and in a properly structured sentence. I was hoping for further information even though I never get it. I still hold out hope from time to time.
“Yes pwease!” She said happily.
“Honey, what kangaroo are you talking about?” I didn’t want to say “yes” to something that might not fit in her backpack or that I didn’t want her to risk losing at school.
“Yes pwease!” She said jumping up and down, “Yes pwease!”
“Wait sweetie, I don’t understand. What kangaroo do you want to bring? Can you show me?”
She began to get frustrated that I wasn’t just saying “yes” or “no” to her request and that her “Yes please” wasn’t doing the magic, so she went through her rolodex of canned politeness. She rolled her eyes up to remember how to say the whole sentence, “May have mah-key kag-roo pak-pak?…Pah-wee-ze!”
I tried so hard not to just laugh that I almost snorted. She didn’t understand that I did not understand what kangaroo she was talking about. She seems to think that if I understand the words that she’s using that I must also understand which of her seven hundred monkey items she wants. The child has about seven stuffed monkeys, a set of monkey PJs, flash cards with monkeys on them, books with monkeys. The kangaroo really stumped me. She has some alphabet flash cards with a Kangaroo for “K”, but that’s about all that I know.
“Ok fine, as long as it fits in your backpack.” I cringed. I also hope it’s not something expensive that might get lost at school. It turned out that she wanted to bring her “Brain Quest” cards. The cards for ages 2 to 3 have a monkey on them and the cards for 3 to 4 have a mouse which looks like a kangaroo to her. Whew! Yep, those can go to school.
