Gohonkas

Do your kids make up words?  Or do they hear things differently than they are and end up saying silly things?  Cassie was, and sometimes still is,  the queen of 'unwords' or 'lexical innovations', which have become the delight of our family. Pocohantas was Gohonkas, parade was hurrade (combination of hurray! and parade?), paparazzi morphed into pepperanzi (sounds like a specialty pizza).  These are just a few of dozens and I wish I could remember more.

Names were another source of silliness, as Kate became Cake (she actually adopted Cake as a nickname) and Scott was called Sock (he didn't care much for that one). Sister Missy was just See (an abbreviation of an already abbreviated name), but brother Gary became The Boy which made sense because he was the only boy child, but a rather generic label, one has to admit.  Cassie wasn't the only one.  I think it was Gary who dubbed Ann Arbor 'Man Arbor'.  Missy just wanted to be a flying pony.  Really, she wanted to BE one.  Maybe she still does, but at 21 that's just not cool.

To be honest, sometimes I corrected the nonsense words and sometimes I didn't.  I'm sure child development experts would be all over me about that one, especially in light of the issues she deals with.  But it was so cute (I mean, come on, GOHONKAS?!  We'd start chanting, "go honkas, go honkas, go go go honkas"), and she seemed so certain of the things she said (and gets so angry when corrected!) I often let it slide, all while struggling to keep a straight face.  Nowadays, we don't let her flub words as much, as what was cute at 5 is frowned upon at 14.  But Cassie's lack of sophistication will always make me chuckle and endear her to me, whether she's 14 or 40.