How to Speak Like a Malstrom

Every family has its own lingo. For instance in the Simmons household "blah-bo-do-bee" perfectly described your hair on a bad hair day.

In the Malstrom household, we have acquired many sayings and I present some here for you:

"Lucky beans" = green beans. For a short period of time in 2003, Payton decided he couldn't pronounce the "y" sound anymore. He was good at keeping up the facade as he said, "I love lou."

Then we visited my sister for Christmas. After a 4 hour flight without even a snack, I was thrilled to see that my thoughtful sister had made us a wonderful dinner. I was told later that (while I ate in another room) Payton had picked up a green bean, tasted it, then threw it at the wall and said, "These beans are LUCKY!"

"Smokey-palokey" and "Co-ca-mo"= terms of endearment. Usage of these terms are appropriate when leaving the house with Libby.

Me: Let's go Co-ca-mo
Libby: Okey dokey, Smokey-Palokey
Me: I'm not Smokey-Palokey. You are.
Libby: No, you are and you know you are.
Case closed.

"Back-uh-duh-chee"=macaroni and cheese. Savannah spoke really early so a few of her words did not come out just right. A few examples that caught on for awhile are: pitch-kur for picture, mag-itch for magic, and flow-ler for flower. But by far everyone's favorite (for ten years now) is the way she pronounced her favorite food- back-uh-duh-chee.

Another picture of the Malstrom "brothers"

Mobile blog??

Payton always wanted a brother...so meet Larry

This blog is rated "M" for Mom.

One of my funniest memories comes from riding in the car with Mama and listening to the radio. Clear as day I remember Elton John's "that's why they call it the blues" coming on the radio. In our car, the chorus sounded like this: "Laughing like children. Living like lovers. ............(complete silence as my mom had turned down the volume knob)..........and I guess that's why they call it the blues."

I know she was trying to edit out something a little mature for her small children, but it didn't stop us singing (to total silence) "rolling like thunder under the covers."

My children seem to have inherited my love for singing along with the radio and my ability to quickly pick up on the lyrics of popular songs. As soon as I caught Payton singing some questionable lyrics, I started trying to censor the radio. The problem is that my "mom ear" isn't always on. Or sometimes, I am too busy singing along to realize that my children are in the car listening. So I was not very surprised when Libby told me her favorite song was the song by Pink where she sings...."Na na na na na na na I wanna start a fight." I just decided to try a little harder.

Today, however, I was very surprised when Libby walked into the room singing, "When you see my face, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell."

Oops.

Payton at a restaurant (last year)

Firstly

Ty said he thinks we should have a family blog. He has read a few of his friends' sites and thinks they are amusing so we shall try.

I guess our best story as of late comes from last weekend:
We went out to breakfast with the kids. After spending some time getting Payton to leave his drink alone, telling Savannah to keep her fingers out of her food, and wiping the strawberry and whipped cream from Libby, we were questioning the idea of a nice family dining experience.

I didn't really love my potatoes, so I passed them on to Payton. A little while later--just as the waitress was coming over to check on us---Payton walked up to me with plate in hand and announced (very loudly) "Mom, didn't you think these potatoes were gross?"
Thankfully the waitress just laughed and asked if she could take our empty plates and the "gross potatoes" away.

We have a little tradition at this particular restaurant of getting something out of the little machines out front. After getting the kids each a gumball, they wanted me to ask the wizard at the top of the machine a question. I gave in and asked, "Will my kids ever behave in a restaurant?" I waived my hand over the crystal ball with hope in my heart.
Then the wizard made his fateful pronouncement: "It is not in the cards."