To Put It Another Way

I’ve always wanted to send this story off to Readers Digest for one of their humor columns, but now that I have my own venue, it’s finally time to share it with the world.

It’s only taken me two decades – how about that for timely?

When my first niece was three years old, my sister was trying to teach her important facts, like her phone number, the real names of her mom and dad, her last name and her address. Things she would need to be able to repeat if she ever was separated from them in public and a kindly police officer or person on an intercom was trying to reconnect her with mom and dad.

I was over visiting and she was showing me what she had taught her first born, the picture is still very vivid in my head, we were by the front door in the “great room”.

If you don’t know my sister, she is a person that likes the English language. Words have always came very easily to her, so when she was teaching my niece about her address, she was very thorough and thought about every angle. Therefore, she broke out how people might pronounce the word address by saying the different ways to my little niece phonetically:

Now baby girl, some people may pronounce the word as Ah-Dress when asking where you live and others may pronounce the word Add-Dress when asking where you live – to which my sharp minded little niece piped up “and mama, some people might say Add-Pants”.

To this day, it’s still one of the best things I have ever heard, totally brilliant and completely hilarious, at three years old! Sometimes it’s amazing what kids know and say.

So there you have it, the little story I like to think I torture my niece with at least once a year, it really is one of my favorite things! 

Oh, you know my niece? Ah, well go easy on her, she was only three at the time and you have to admit, it made you smile – yes?