ok, I admit it, I’m holding them back

I have a confession to make. A bad mom type of confession. But I’m putting it out there, because I’m willing to bet I’m not alone in this.

I allow my children to misspeak because I think it’s cute. And sometimes, I actually encourage the use of the baby words, because I’ll be sad when they grow out of them.

Like what? you may ask. Or don’t ask, whatever, I’m telling you anyway. These are a few words pulled straight from our family dictionary:

‘plobbler toys’ – you know, the under-3 toys in Happy Meals. ok fine, toddler toys. whatever.

‘cuddles’ – besides the obvious, these are also the small pools of water to splash in – aka puddles.

‘chrucks’ – trucks. apparently we have some annunciation issues. we’re southern.

‘bask in robin’s’ – observed just yesterday, when Annie asked what it meant to bask in something

And all of the above, sadly, are things I’ve allowed all three girls to continue. Yes, Annie just turned 6. I know.

And then there are the little baby words, that are oh-so-adorable. Lilly just turned 2, so she is bandying about gems like wadu(water), cuppa(cup), shrash(trash), ba-ye(belly), and wa-wu(love you).

I know you’re supposed to use the real words. But it’s hard sometimes. I like the baby words, and she’s the last baby here to use them. Annie’s adorable utterances like adoo(ice cream) and bodu(Cooper, our dog – how she came up with this is beyond me) are long gone. Catie had gems like guck(stuck) and balay(blanket – ok, we still call it that), but she’s evolved as well.

So yeah, I’m a bad mom. I’ll probably give my poor daughters speech impediments or developmental delays or something. But they will be so darn cute!

PS) One more sugary sweet mommy moment, and then I promise I’ll stop. When Annie was tiny, she’d come to me with her arms up and I’d swoop her up, saying ‘Mommy would be happy to hold you.’ As soon as she began talking, her outstretched arms were accompanied by her tiny little voice saying ‘happy hold you, happy hold you.’ How cute is that?