How to speak 'preschooler'

I do have to admit that every once in a while I find my students a little hard to understand. If you ever have any difficulties trying to figure out what a three-year-old is trying to tell you, perhaps this post can help you out a little bit.

Cafe (Caif)-Cape
Cazoopie-Pizookie
Chinemy-Chimney
Copcorn, Pompom-Popcorn
Coperate (as in: "don't coperate me")-Copy
Favorite (as in: "can you do me a favorite?")-Favor
Ghost-es- More than one ghost
Hanitizer-Hand sanitizer
Hangamer- Hamburger
Imporpant-Important
Lawen, Wauren, Wawen, Yauren, Yawen, Lawnen-Lauren
Lellow*-Yellow
Nana, Bwana-Banana
Packpack-Backpack
Penny-Any metal coin
Roobot-Robot
Squish-Squash
Tangled-Rapunzel

This is not a definitive list, though I do intend to add to it. There are also a number of other words my darling three-year-olds butcher on a daily basis and most, due to several speech impediments, need to be translated on a case-to-case basis. For some of my students, I am still working on speaking the specific dialect of that particular student.

*'Lellow' was the first word that opened my mind to the language of preschool aged children. I was talking with a boy I was babysitting and asking his favorite color. His response was 'lellow' and I (stupidly) responded 'oh, you like lellow?'. He then tried to correct me by telling me he liked 'llllellow'. As he tried to emphasize the first letter of the word, I realized that when he said 'lello' he heard himself saying 'yellow'. When I said 'lello', he truly heard the word 'lello'. 

Adventures in Babysitting

There are a lot of things I'm not good at. I'm a terrible singer, I'm not a very good driver, and I suck at spelling. However...despite all of that, I am a darn good babysitter. This is one area where I am more than willing to toot my own horn (toot toot) I am AWESOME at babysitting. I mean, I've had close to 11 years of experience. I love kids, kids love me. But it takes more than that to rock as well as I do at babysitting.

Tonight a co-worker asked me, last minute, if I could watch her two kids (ages 8 and 6) tonight. I thought, 'why not? I'm not doing anything, and it's easy money.' So when I got there, the kids were finishing their dinners, and I allowed them to finish the episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, and watch an episode of Good Luck, Charlie. Then...we turned off the TV. We played Freeze Dance for, like, 45 minutes. They kept bringing props and costumes out into the living room, so towards the end, my rule was every time I froze the music, they would have to put something away. Then they put on a show for me (I could tell they did this quite often, as they had as choreographed a routine as an 8 year old and 6 year old could come up with). Then the little girl asked if she could paint my nails (she was not at all satisfied or impressed with my clear nail polish) but decided after painting one thumbnail a kind of orange-y coral-y color that she would rather have me paint her nails. So I did. She wanted to be surprised, so I did each one a different color...she loved it!! Then we played hide-and-seek, Mickey Mouse Yahtzee, Crazy Eights and more freeze dance. We were having a crazy dance party when their parents got home. It was my first time sitting for these kids, actually, my first time meeting them...and they wanted me to stay longer. Why?

BECAUSE I ROCK AT BABYSITTING, THAT'S WHY!!

(Although, it helps when you have great kids, like I did tonight)