Both of my kids have always had great verbal skills, Daniel especially. They have good vocabularies and speak quite clearly for their age.  When they mis-pronounce things, I almost never bother to correct them. The mistakes are adorable, for one thing. And for another, they have outgrown nearly all of them on their own, no intervention needed.

Daniel, however, is going through an intentionally lazy phase. He shortens words just because he can. When writing his name on papers at school, he stops at Dan. Because he can. It mostly makes me laugh, since he is clearly just like his mom and dad – perfectly capable of doing the work, but aware of how little he can get away with.

There is one development, in the past couple of days, that I do think I will try to correct. Mostly because I’m finding it annoying as hell.  As with most four-year-old boys, he often has his head in the clouds and isn’t paying attention to what someone tells him.  “What did you say?” has, apparently, become entirely too burdensome to say in its entirety.  Because at least two dozen times today, I heard him say:

“Wha-say?”

“Wha-say, Mom?”

“Wha-say, Becca?”

But, of course, just because he’s asked you to repeat yourself doesn’t mean he’s ACTUALLY LISTENING the second time.  So I get “wha-say” about six times in thirty seconds.

Oh, the random irritations of parenting, and the sudden realization that you sound like a crochety old lady.

“I can’t understand you when you mumble! Please speak clearly!”

I’ll just go soak my dentures, now.

My four-year-olds are obsessed with death. It’s more than a little disconcerting.

Who even knows how it first came up. I know at one point we were at a stoplight, waiting for a funeral procession to go by, and the kids asked about the flags on the cars. I said something about the people in the cars knowing someone who died, and from that point on, it was all “do we know someone who died?” “When can we know someone who died?” “I know who died! Nana.”  It was all alarmingly nonchalant.

I have no idea what line to walk on this one. We’ve done our best to sort of explain what death means, talking about bodies not working any more, and that you don’t get to see that person again, etc..  I want to convey that it’s something serious, not something to joke about, something permanent. But I also know that death is a part of life and all that, so I don’t want to make Death something more scary and sad than is necessary.

For a while, the kids got it in their heads that people died when they turned 100. Daniel temporarily freaked out and said he wanted to stop having birthdays so he wouldn’t get to 100. Thankfully, that one passed relatively quickly.  Now, we’ve moved on to “when I die” as an expression of forever. “He’s my friend, and he’s going to be my friend until we die.”

Honestly, it gives me a start every time it works its way into conversation. And, as four-year-olds will do, it comes up at the most random times.  blah blah miscellaneous mashup story of preschool and tv shows WHEN I DIE. And then I jump and try not to look too alarmed.

As with anything at this age, I kind of just try to acknowledge and move on, answer a question if it’s asked, stay as matter-of-fact as I can about it.  And cross my fingers that the fixation passes soon. And hope that the only first-hand knowledge of death that my kids have for a very long time is the unfortunate bird we came across on a walk last week.

Oh, I’ll never hear the end of that poor, dead bird.

I know this is just one of those developmental phases, as the kids get older and start becoming more aware of life and death around them. They seem to be doing just fine, absorbing bits and pieces on their own level, no major anxiety attached to it. But I won’t complain when we move on to other things for a little while.