When Words Fail

We had just finished our grocery shopping, and I wheeled the shopping cart out of the store into the parking lot. We heard it before we saw it: the distinct exhaust note of a muscle car.  The girls love all things loud and shiny, and for the brief moment while it passed they remained surprisingly still, with the exception of Brooke who raised her hand in greeting as if it were a parade vehicle.

When we continued walking, Reese looked at her and said, “That’s wasn’t just any loud car, Brooke. That was a mustache.”

Mustache.  Mustang.  What’s the difference?  To Reese, not very much.

She’s a master of malapropisms.  I so enjoy listening to her.

Yesterday, for instance, she sat at the kitchen table eating her after-school snack and explained that she was learning sign language to accompany a song about a squirrel.  She then sang something about a fluffy tail and collecting nuts while flailing her arms indistinctly.

“That’s the sign language?” I questioned.

“Yeah. You know about sign language, Mom.  It’s the stuff that you do with your hands to help out blind people.”

Of course.  Sign language for blind people.  I should have known.

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