Vocabulary lesson

Have you ever noticed how families seem to have their own dialect? I noticed when I was growing up that there were certain words that my friends' families and mine used among themselves that I didn't always understand, almost like inside jokes that evolved into terminology. Now our family is starting to do this same thing, and I'll share an example.

When Jellybean was born, in typical new-parent obsessive style, L and I (okay, mostly I) became conscious of making sure we called all the body parts their correct names so she would learn them. I'm not talking about private parts; I mean stuff like schnoz instead of nose. One of our choices was to refer to her backside as her bottom: "Sit on your bottom, please."

We got our swing set when she was almost 2, and we spent countless hours pushing her on the swing. I swear, she could've set the Guinness World Record for time spent in a swing without getting bored. So to keep ourselves from getting tired of pushing, L and I came up with little games and songs to do with her while she was swinging.

One of her favorites involved us drumming on her bottom when she swung toward us and yelling out "Drum!" She cackled every time. One day I heard L saying "Butt drum!" instead of just "drum." I thought that "butt" was not a word I wanted my 2-year-old repeating -- to me or anyone else. So I made him cease and desist use of "butt," and on the spot I came up with "Bum drum!" as a replacement. Same effect, gentler synonym, everyone was happy.

Over the past 2 years and with the addition of another child capable of speaking, "bum drum" has merged into our family's unique dialect. "Bum drum" = "bottom" at any given time. As in, "I fell and hurt my bum drum." Or, as Jellybean said to me yesterday when I stood up from coloring with chalk outside on the sidewalk, "Mama, you have chalk on your bum drum."