Fassing and Rounding

We are not a video-taking family. I’m a bit surprised by this actually because Mr. Husband is such a gadget freak. But he has never shown any interest in taking pictures, let alone video. I, on the other hand, am a picture taker, so we do have some celluloid documentation of our family life. I do not miss the footage that we do not have of Christmas concerts, plays, graduations and play off games, but I do wish we had captured some of the audio that has coloured our lives.

My first longing for audio memories came with Sirtalksalot. He had some of the greatest questions and reasonings. My friends were always warning me to write them down and I was certain I would never forget his gems. Yet, here we are, some years later and I am hard pressed to recall the stories I was sure would never leave my consciousness.

I do remember the "Dad, if you’re so smart…" conversations. "Dad, if you’re so smart, how come the sky is blue? If you’re so smart, how come ice cream melts?" And my personal favourite, delivered with such self-assured gusto, "Dad, if you’re so smart, who invented God?" Dad always had an answer and Sirtalksalot always had another question. He still does, hence his blog name.

Now the Gaffer is developing language and sayings that I know she’ll outgrow but that I do not ever want to lose. She suffers a bit from malapropitis with some common terms like "paper toilet" "hire fydrant" and "Hocapontas", but it is the terms she has developed this week that have driven me to at least make a written recording of her latest language inventions.

We are at the cottage and she has spent a lot of time fishing off of the end of the dock. She has a toy rod with a plastic fish on the end of it. I hesitate to actually admit to that here in public because anyone who reads this and knows me will know how much it goes against my nature to have a daughter who practices fishing and isn’t actually fishing for real. But after a 2006 summer full of worm placements and fish removals, I’m happy to start this season slowly and let her play with the pink, hook-less fish.

The rod has a yellow button that releases the line and for awhile she was happy to release and wind, release and wind, but eventually she turned to me and said, "Mama, can you fass?" You’d think pink and blue fishing rod waving in my face would help, but truly, I had difficulty trying to figure out whether or not I actually could "fass." Would it hurt? Did I have the dexterity? Did I have the strength? Would I like fassing?  While I pondered all of these concerns I was asked again, "Mama, can you fass so I can round?"  I stared for what I thought was a brief moment although the impatient foot-tapping of my three year old would imply otherwise.  "Mama," she said a third time, "You fass my fishie out there and I will round it in." And suddenly I understood. I took her little plastic rod, pressed down on the yellow button cast the pretty pink fishie out into the lake and she happily wound it back in.

We have spent the last few nights, happily fassing and rounding while Mommy and Daddy have a nice cocktail on the dock. I figured these would be our language gems for the summer. That is, until tonight when we went for a pre-dinner swim. The Gaffer put on her Tinkerbell "kini" which has a little top and matching skirted bottom.  Momma put on her tankini which has a very long top and a simple big-butt covering bottom. The Gaffer, who has taken to supervising all of Momma’s dressing and undressing declared that she was in an "up-kini" because hers was over her tummy and I was in a "down-kini" because mine went over my belly. When she asked why my ‘kini was so long, I told her it was because Momma liked to keep her stomach warm. She thought about that for a while and pointing at my breasts said, "oh I know, it’s because of those things." I decided to leave that one alone, but document it here for your enjoyment and her posterity.