Brooke and I have made a motherhood pact. We will review a glossary of terms with one another and remain on the same page so that our kids use similar and unoffensive language (according to the standards that Brooke and I set 🙂 ).
One word that Brooke and I cannot tolerate is…do I have to write it without asteriks?…..”Poop”. That is an icky word and we don’t use it nor any form of it. (And we prefer family and friends not use this word with our kids either for those reading this 🙂
What to say then? Brooke didn’t like “yucky” which Tanner renamed “Lucky” (I favor “lucky” personally) so we nixed that. “Number 2” is working the best for us.
Anyhow, someone introduced Noah to this word and he has found several ways to use it in a sentence much to his parents dismay.
Last week this issue came up and he was reminded that he is not allowed to use that word. Noah responded by saying “But Daddy! That is my favorite word! I like that word!”
Poor Daniel. His sensitivity to word choice is even more conservative than Brooke and my own. Figures he would get stuck with these conversations (while David laughs hysterically egging Noah on I am sure).
Anyhow, Brooke finally negotiated with Noah and told him that he could use the word “Road Apples” (discussing the deposits from the horse:). Noah thought that was great fun and it worked as a replacement word for a bit.
Before sharing part 2 of this story, I have to sidetrack with some background information. Daniel and Brooke own a business. Their employees clean commercial buildings. The majority of their employees are spanish speaking. Daniel, due to teaching spanish speaking children and now running this business, has become quite proficient in Spanish. Drives Brooke and I nuts because he is continually having conversations with us in a foreign language while we gaze on in stupor wondering what in the heck he is talking about. Show off.
Apparently, he has been trying to teach Noah spanish as well but Daniel told me that Noah is getting these concepts as easily as his dog Ryland was ( LOL…the dog that could not..). Maybe Graham will participate in this father son bonding experience with a language to themselves :).
Back to my story….
So Brooke is driving down the road and hear’s Noah talking in the back seat. Noah keeps saying “accapoomba”. Brooke asks (naturally) what accapoomba is. Noah say’s “It’s spanish for road apples.”
Now Aunt Sissy throws her head back in delight! (For the english speaking only – accapoomba is a word generated out of the mind of 2 year old Noah and is not a spanish word).
Sweetie and I have decided to adopt this word. How can a word be offensive if no one knows it’s origin? And as Grammy Rene say’s “It actually sounds kinda nice”. 🙂
And on a side note (since I am in the Family Diary)…how is Karsyn just like her daddy Darin? According to Darin…..
(1) She is happy all the time (like Daddy)
(2) She sleeps a lot (like Daddy)
(3) She doesn’t take out the trash (like Daddy)
Yep…like father like daugher.
6 responses to “Accapoomba”
my husband is not very word sensitive… i’m not especially but definitely was moreso before he came along! what to do… how do you teach a child to say “accapoombah” without it coming out “pooh” anyway? hmmm…. i’ll have to think about this and see if i can come up with a substitute that daddy can appreciate and seth can pronounce…. 🙂
Funny how we all hear things differentyly. We as in Hubby and I think the word is funny sounding. I don’t mind the word at all. At any rate I try to get Shay (5) to say “I have to go to the bathroom” really I don’t need to know if it is #1 or #2 and would perfer not too. Plus he has a bad habbit of not flushing. … sorry for the picture…lol I do like your subsitutes! I can’t pronouse the “accapoombah” can you really spell it out so I can get a handle on what it sounds like?
Thanks! Jere’
“Accapoomba”… somehow makes me think of Hakuna Matata! lol
I love your word… I have a severe aversion to talking about anything remotely related to that function in our lives so imagine my horror when I was potty training Nora (3) and I had to figure out what to call that one!!! We had taught our dog that it was “big potty”, but that didn’t seem right for a little girl – or a human for that matter – so I really didn’t address the situation. While at my in-laws for a weekend, my mother-in-law named it for her (my MIL seems to talk about this function more often than I am comfortable with, but that is another story LOL). So we came home and Nora was saying that she “pooped on the potty”. It has stuck – of course, I don’t say it ever, but I hear the horrific word coming out of her mouth now more than I care to. I think Noah’s word is brilliant! Let’s see if it’ll take with Nora… and my mother-in-law LOL!
funny i never realized daniel was that conservative. hard to imagine that with those brothers of yours!!!
i had a few thoughts to add on the potty training subject as we got a video in the mail today… it was recommended for seth by my cousin – “once upon a potty for boys” – and it’s interesting. he giggles and thinks it’s fun to see the kids and the animated baby go to the potty. jas thinks it’s stupid! it’s not so adult related… ha ha! but seth loves movies and imitating what he sees and it helped my cousins son, so i thought we’d use whatever reinforcement we can. you would NOT like that it uses the words “wee wee” and “p__p__” though! ha ha! that got me thinking… what word could we use??? my train of thought went: other words i’ve heard for bottom are heiny, tushy, bum, bo bo…. seth has gotten used to “gicky” (how he says icky/yucky) for “number 2” but i thought a gentler word to teach him (so he’ll be ready when we visit you – ha ha!) would be bummy… isn’t that a good word? potty & bummy! we’ll see if it sticks…