Eyeballs and Dolphins

My grandson Kaden will be 4 this week. When I talked to him on the phone last week to find out what he wanted for his birthday he told me – well, I thought he told me – that he wanted a dolphin. Hmm. OK.

Fortunately I talked to my granddaughter Taylor (his sister), because this is what would have happened had I not talked to her:

He would have been excited to open his present expecting what I promised him and then wondered what was wrong with his grandma. Because what he actually asked for was a Pokemon Donphan.

So I began my search for this "out-of-stock" item on every web site imaginable – UNTIL I found out from my daughter-in-law that it doesn't even exist. How can something that doesn't exist be out of stock? Whatever. So I bought something else and now I'll have to explain to Kaden that Donphan exists only in the Pokemon card world. 

Now onto eyeballs. Audrey is my four-year old granddaughter who announced the other day that eyeball was a bad word. I wish her mom (my daughter) and dad would give me a dictionary. Seems Audrey was abusing the word by calling everything "eyeball" such as eyeball light, and eyebally duh duh, and eyeball this, and eyeball that until it got to the point that eyeball was banned from Audrey's vocabulary.

What's funny about that – to me – is that when Audrey was a baby playing hide-and-seek with her mommy, and part of her head was clearly visible beneath the blanket, Brittney would say to her, "I can see your eyeball." I thought that was weird at the time, but I said nothing. I mean, why not say, "I can see your eye." But no, Brittney said, "I can see your eyeball."

Audrey has a memory that goes back so far she can probably remember her life before this one, so it stands to reason that she would remember her mommy saying, "I can see your eyeball" when they played hide-and-seek. I'm sure it brought back fond memories, memories now ruined by the new ban. 

But like many of the mysteries of the child-parent relationship, moms and dads make the rules and kids have to abide by them.

Grandmas don't. I don't like the word eyeball either, but now I have to say it all the time.

Being a grandma is tough work. Here's my most recent conversation with Audrey.

Audrey: Did it broke?

Me: You mean did it break?

Audrey: No, Daddy says to say broke not break.

Well, I'm not going to argue my grandchildren's moms or dads, but I can't help myself from giving them an English lesson. While I was preparing dinner last night, I told Audrey about all the forms of brake, break, broke, broken. I don't remember at what point she left the conversation.