Ds2 (AS)'s literal quote of the day............

[Aero]

"Why are there no clouds in my lemonade?"

We had some 'cloudy' lemonade left over from a BBQ with friends yesterday and we allowed him a little this evening at tea-time.

He is much less literal than he used to be, but this one did make me smile. Bless him!

Oh bless! He must have been really looking forward to seeing them in there!

:D

It was funny. The other one he reacted to was when I told him he was not to go 'off' bolognese the other day (it's about the only half decent thing left in his diet) and that I'd made it from 'scratch', at which point he started scratching himself all over and looked very puzzled trying to make the connection. Knowing my luck, he'll never eat bolognese again with that association!! lol

We've had two good ones this weekend, both in the same conversation.

First one was:

me: 'You have been treating your brother like dirt today and its totally unacceptable'
ds1: 'Huh? I don't have an opnion on dirt, I don't treat it like anything."
me: " Yes, well its actually just a phrase people use to mean treating people badly or like they aren't worth anything."
ds1: "But dirt is valuable, without it we wouldn't be able to grow any food."
me: "Erm .... yes ... but I think it means dirt as in grime - dust etc."
ds1: "Oh, well its a stupid phrase - it doesn't make sense."
me: "Right, well, er .... how about you just go and be nicer to your brother"
ds1 "Ok, but I wasn't being nasty.
me:

Second one was during yet another argument:

me: "ds1, please don't split hairs"
ds1: "I'm not splitting hairs, hairs are too thin to split."
me:
ds1: "Well, that's just silly, why not just say what you mean."
me: "Yes you're right, ds we should say what we mean, but in the meantime, if someone ever says 'don't split hairs' to you again - that's what they mean ok?"
ds1 "OK - but people are weird."
me: "Don't I know it!"
ds1: "What does that mean?
me: "Never mind!!"

.... and I didn't think he was very literal!

Actually, he seems to be getting more literal as he gets older - but I think in actual fact its just that instead of going away confused, these days he challenges what he doesn't understand.

Dd3 pulls me up on everything I say that can be mistranslated, it gets very wearing at times,.

But it can be very funny too.

I would agree with moose and say she is getting worse as she gets older, I think she is undertanding more that things don't make sense and she is not prepared to put up with it.

Funniest one with my ds recently, was me telling him to eat his carrots as they help him see in the dark. I turned round to find him with a piece of carrot stuck over each eye saying, ' I'm seeing but it's still dark' lol.

feynman that is priceless

During the snow we had not so long ago I said to dd that there was no school the next day because of the weather and that 'maybe we'll get a lie-in tomorrow' (ever hopeful). Dd replied with a look of horror 'but I don't want to get a lion, that's a wild animal!' She then went into great details of why a hamster would make a better pet..
Another one during attempting to drive in said snow, coming up to a junction I couldn't see clearly at what point to turn onto the road. Me: (sharp intake of breath after almost hitting the pavement) 'I almost turned into the pavement.' Dd: 'How can you turn into a pavement?'

I told DD2 yesterday that if she wrapped a blanket around her she would be warm as toast. I immediately received a lecture on how toast can go cold just like anything else and, in fact, hers is often cold by the time she eats it so I should say 'warm as toast that's just been made'. However then it is very hot so it should be warm as toast that was made a couple of minutes ago. Then she wanted to know what temperature that would be.

I've done it again with ds this morning by saying "ds1, if you don't want to play with it, let ds2 play with it - it's no skin off your nose".

Cue one very puzzled ds, trying to work out what on earth I meant " Huh? Of course its not made out of skin off my nose. You can't take the skin off your nose."

Then his brother said "I think it's a metaphor, isn't it Mum?"

Ds1 was not impressed at all, wanted to know why its a metaphor, what it means and where it originates from. Cue a very and harrassed Mum who didn't really know either how to explain it or why anyone would say something so obtuse to mean it 'doesn't matter to you'.

That reminds me actually, I thought I might google it to see if I can find out where the phrase comes from.

You just don't think about how weird some of our phrases are until they are pointed out to you do you?

Its no wonder poor ds1 spends half his life looking puzzled.

Every time I say to DS ' hold your horses' His response is very serious, 'but mummmy, I don't have a horse'