Crouch & Tennyson

The Rock Star still says vitafin instead of vitamin. And you'd be completely kidding yourself if you thought I had any intention of ever telling him how it's really said. I figure that, one day, he'll get it as a spelling word and that will be the end of that. He has always had a huge vocabulary and, while his peer group appears to be catching up, he still surprises me with a giant word here and there. Rarely does he surprise me by using the wrong word.

Tonight, he opened a very early birthday present from my parents. They bought him a spring wetsuit to take to surf camp. I'd taken him with me to try them on and a size eight was way too big. I couldn't find any 6's to see if that would do the trick. My parents bought him a 6 and had it shipped to our house but we needed him to try it on in the event that it didn't fit and needed to be returned.

He opened it (was ecstatic) and immediately put it on. It fits much better than the 8 and Troy and I were commenting that he had room to grow in both the shoulder and the crotch area. The Rock Star called my parents to thank them. I don't know if my mom asked how it fit or if Garrett just volunteered the information but, suddenly, he said, "There's room in my crouch."

I folded in half laughing as he repeated, "There's plenty of room in my crouch!" Then, seeing me laughing and knowing that something was up, he pulled the phone away from his face and said, "Mommy, what's my crouch?"

Later, when I took the phone from him to talk to my mom, she said that she had tears rolling down her face during the whole exchange. Oh man. That kid is hilarious.

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My favorite Matthewism right now involves shoes.

I always refer to sneaker style shoes as tennis shoes. I don't really know why. Growing up we called them tennis shoes or teneez. Because, somehow shortening them to just tennis morphed into teneez. In any case, that's what I call them. I never say sneakers. I say tennis shoes--although it comes out more like ten-ih-shoes.

As Matthew gets older, he gets more articulate. I always thought he was saying tennis shoes but, the truth of the matter is, he calls his shoes tennysons.

"Go get your shoes on," I'll say.

"Should I wear my fwip fwops or my tennysons?" he'll ask.

It's adorable. Yes, this is definitely the kid of a literature lover. I'm half tempted to start referring to his shoes as Lord Alfred just for fun.

"Go put on your Lord Alfreds," I'll say.

"Do you mean my Tennysons?" he'll ask.

And my day will be made. It's the little things in life.