Last night C pulled out his book of nursery rhymes and asked me to read to him. He doesn’t pull this particular book out very often and I think this was the first time he’s asked me to read it to him. During the course of reading them, I discovered three things. One, I only remember about half to three quarters of them from my childhood. Two, a couple of them are … what’s the right word … wrong? Seriously, to quote Goosey, Goosey, Gander (one I do not remember):
I took him by the left leg
And threw him down the stairs.
I found this kind of funny (hey I’m a little strange), but is this really something that should be in a nursery rhyme?
So I said there were three things I discovered. The third thing is that Andrew Dice Clay has pretty much ruined nursery rhymes for me. I can’t read Mary Had a Little Lamb or Georgie Porgie Pudding and Pie without his reworked words going through my head. And of course I have to be careful not to say them out loud. I’m sure mom would love C to pick those up. ;-)
Not at all – but since I taught “oh god” (in an exasperated voice) last night, I guess I have no room to complain. And let me tell you, he repeated in the same voice and inflection. Help us.
Oh dear. We have the same things going on here too. Lala looked at Blake the other night and said “Zip your lips”. Preschool! Oh and he was in the kitchen when she took him by the arms (he was on her level) and said “Daddy, I’m losing my mind”. Same as above, same voice and infelction that I use when I have seriously “lost my mind”, which is often around here! I tried so hard to get it on tape, but she’d lost it by then and was jumping up and down, etc. Also, we don’t know where she heard it, but she’s started saying “Shut”, and I, the crazy one will finish it by saying “the door?”. Uh huh. You tell me.
Those nursery rhymes will get you every time. I have my original Mother Goose from when I was a child and there are definitely ones I don’t remember my mother teaching me. My nephew is working on reading Where the Sidewalk Ends and Runny Babbit – two of my favorite books as a child and I worry what he’ll pick up. When my eldest niece was 3 (she’s 20 now), she was riding with me – age 17 and I was listening to Def Leppard. When I got her home, she recited word for word the lyrics to “Pour Some Sugar On Me” – my brother nearly killed me for that one!
