Jack is my younger, 13-year-old brother. He's the youngest in the family, but I am 8 years older than him and Mike is 6 years older. So this means that all of Jack's hilarious moments have been remembered and recalled many times.
Jack had a slight speech impediment as a little kid. So one day, he had to be around 2 or 3 years old, he was playing trucks in our den when he saw my Dad crouch down by the patio door with a box of weird traps. He butt scooted over, because at this point in Jack's life, this was how he got around if he didn't feel like getting up. He peered over my Dad's arms and chugged away on his binkie before taking it out of his mouth and looking around for me and my mom. We were both watching my Dad and Jack cracked a smile and remembered that Mom had asked my Dad to set up the ant traps earlier in the day. So Jack, displaying his wonderful memory, happily yells, "Mommy! Daddy's settin' up ant craps!" Well, Michael thought this was hilarious. He told everyone.
This story, however, pales in comparison to the great vanilla debate. My cousins were great fans of this story. Jack, still with his speech impediment, had trouble with his 1's. They sounded more like r's to the close listener. So VANILLA sounded much more like VANEERA. Well, Lauren, Steve, and Allison loved to imitate Jack and say VANEERA every chance they got. Jack was not impressed, mainly because they couldn't seem to say it right. So, when Mom asked who wanted some Vanilla ice-cream with their cake at one family party, all my cousins piped up that they would like some VANEERA. Jack was mad: "It's not VANIRA, it's VANEERA!" Yup. Apparently even a speech impediment has a correct pronunciation. Or he could have possibly been trying to really say Vanilla and just couldn't. Poor guy. Fast forward to about a month ago - June 2012. Lauren is on her honeymoon in Tahiti. I receive a picture and text from her. The picture is of Tahitian Vanilla beans, or, in Tahiti -Hira Vanira. As Lauren laughed, she said that Jack didn't have a speech impediment after all! He was speaking Tahitian! hahaha. It just added to the multilingualism in our family. Michael used to sing a Japanese version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, but it somehow ended with a mais oui...French. Yeah. And then...I have one more story involving myself. Of course.
My Nonna and Poppa had a neighbor, Marie. She was very Italian. She was also very traditional in how she dressed and looked. Little scary to a young kid, especially a 2 or 3 year old, because her appearance was a little rough. She was the sweetest lady though. Always offered me some watermelon (maybe that's why I love it so much now!) and would sit at my Nonna's outdoor glass table and jabber in Italian. Well, I never enjoyed being left out of conversations. I still don't. So I walked on over and stared up at Marie as she spoke to Nonna. She looked down at me and I voiced my opinion in a great slew of "Babada Babada Babada Ba". Addie Italian! Poor Marie looked at my Nonna and asked, "What did she say?!" She must have thought I was really saying SOMETHING. But no. It was my way of joining in. Nonna and Aunt Ginny couldn't even explain to her what had happened because they were laughing so hard. When Aunt Ginny told us this story a few months ago, Mike was immediately reminded of Peter, in Family Guy, when he tries to speak Italian. Hmm...
I know this post kind of spider-legged out, but I hope it entertained a little. I just got to thinking while I got ready for work this morning and this seemed like a fitting post for today while I'm waiting for the massive thunderstorms to roll in. I'll put some pictures too. Make all my rambling a little worthwhile.
The baby bird under our dock a week ago. Jack brought me over with the paddle boat.
Otis sunset
Jasper channeling Kujo while my mom shot him with a water gun. haha
Back to the happy boy
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