Kids repeat EVERYTHING...

 

Kids repeat EVERYTHING.  Before I go into details, I want to preface this post with explaining to those of you that don’t know, that we’re a bilingual family raising our children bilingual (post on that to follow).

That said, sometimes on occasion either my husband or I will think of something in Spanish that doesn’t quite translate to English properly.  That’s the best case scenario.  Once in a while it’ll happen that it does translate but the translation is inappropriate.  #bilingualspeakerproblems

A couple days ago, my husband, girls and I met up for dinner with my good friend, T.   It was the first time that the girls had finally had the opportunity to meet T, so my eldest was understandably excited.  I had also just bought her a unicorn plush toy with a matching backpack and a little plush dog that she was eager to share with T.  She showed T her unicorn and he asked her, “What’s your unicorn’s name?” 

“I don’t know,” she replied distractedly playing.  “Your unicorn doesn’t have a name?!” T exclaimed bewildered.  “You gotta give her a name,” he continued, “How about Sparkle?”

“No,” she replied.  “Star?” he suggested.  “Mmm No,” she said.  Then my husband, thinking of the fact that the unicorn had a horn and translating in his head from Spanish “Cuernito” (little horn), he chimed in, “What about Horny?”

As soon as the word left his mouth, we both reacted (which in retrospect, we shouldn’t have; rookie mistake!).  “Alex!” I gasped as he dug his face in his hands and said “I know, as soon as I said it I heard it.”

Meanwhile, T is laughing his royal-tushy off.  Remember my first sentence? Kids repeat EVERYTHING.  So, what did my daughter name her unicorn? Horny.

Welcome to Parenthood.

Three days later I was able to convince her after suggesting several names, to rename her unicorn Princess like the unicorn toy that T told her he rescued from the garbage on one of his travels.  Judge all you want; I didn’t want to have to explain the original name to her preschool teacher or the other parents.

Have you ever accidentally said anything inappropriate in front of your kids that they then repeated? By all means, share in the comments!