07 August 2007

What Kids Call Adults

The kids at daycare figure out which mommy/daddy belongs to which kid pretty quickly, but what the parent's name is takes a little longer. So, when parents show up, there's a lot of "Hi, Joe's Mommy" and "There's Jane's Daddy".

Next door to us, there's a family with identical twin girls who are a little bit older than Miss M. She can't figure out which one is which, and frankly, I think their father gets it right about 50% of the time. So, she doesn't use their names much: she calls them "the children", as in "Can I go to the children's house?".

Last night, I was in the kitchen, she was in the living room, and W. was outside. All of a sudden I hear her calling out the window:

Hi!

Hi!

The Children's Daddy, hi!

Hi!

Sure enough, there was the children's daddy, outside talking to W.

12 comments:

BipolarLawyerCook said...

Gotta love it. Although I expect that being called "Somebody's parent" is way more amusing than being called "somebody's wife."

Miss M. should come up with something that'll help her keep the two of The Children apart-- tatoos, maybe? : )

Anonymous said...

I love how they do that -- and they even learn to ID which car goes with which family pretty quickly too.

S said...

"the children's daddy"...

snort.

S. said...

This had me laughing out loud!

Girlplustwo said...

i get a lovely rousing chorus of "M's Mommy!" when i pick her up. I love that actually...in that one piece of my world my only seen function is an extension of their friend M.

Maewen Archer said...

Too funny. They're always so consistent once they assign a name to someone -- kids remember so well. I wish I did ...

Anonymous said...

I love how a "friend" of mine, after half a dozen play dates, continues to refer to me as "Brenda" (the actual name is "Linda"). I should have corrected her at the very beginning, so now I've screwed myself. We're practically drinking buddies at this point so what am I supposed to do??

Aurelia said...

I've been "Somebody's Mommy" or "hey you" for so long, I've practically forgotten my own name.

I'm waiting patiently for the high school we picked out, where all the boys are required to call the parents Mr. or Mrs. Last Name.

niobe said...

My best friends in nursery school were identical twins with nearly identical names. I loved the fact that I had two best friends for, as it were, the price of one.

Maeve Bradbury said...

Having 4 boys means I'm frequently called 4 different versions of somebody's mummy. I'm with Aurelia - I don't think I'd recognise my own name... Oh yes, its The Husband's wife, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

That's adorable. Heh.

The kids in my two year old's room call all the parents "mommy" and "daddy." It's a little unnerving to have someone else's kid call me Mommy when I go in to pick up my girl! :-)

Antropóloga said...

I STILL call my friends' parents e.g. "Brenna's mom" TO THEIR FACES sometimes when I am at a loss for their first and last names.