For Christmas and her birthday, Elizabeth was the lucky recipient of five thousand of the loudest, screamiest, not-shut-offiest toys on earth. Or at least it SEEMS like it was five thousand toys. I'm told this is payback for every loud, screamy, no-volume-button toy I ever gifted to my nieces and nephews. I'm constantly being reminded of the year of JAKE THE SNAKE, a plastic slithering and lunging viper with fangs who was powered via remote control on happy, holy Christmas day in the hands of a vengeful 6-year old boy.
I was rudely awakened at 4 am the other day to the sound of "HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON!"
He had been casually packed in the toybox and when the cat walked across his head, she shifted him so that Screamy Dog Baby could constantly press Edison's GO button and never let go.
I stumbled into the living room and kicked Edison's head into the wall.
Edison does a lot of tricks. He's got 26 feet to match up with every letter of the alphabet and just about as many switches, allowing him to perform a variety of phonetic tasks. He can tell you the color of the foot you're pressing, he can sing a song that starts with the letter of the foot you're pressing, he can tell you the letter stenciled on the foot you're pressing and he can phonetically sound the letter on the foot you're pressing.
Elizabeth had retired for the evening a few nights ago. I was washing dishes in the kitchen and Brian was in the living room doing Brian-ish things, which can range from dirt baking to metal sculpting. I was washing the last of the dinner goo out of the sink when I heard the following phonetic lineup sounding out loud and proud from the general Brian vicinity:
"buh-uh-ttt"
"mmm-o-rrrrrr-o-nnnnnn"
"duh-iiii-nnnnn-k"
"f-aaaaaaaa-rrrrrrrrr-t"
"aaaaaa- HAHAHA, that tickles! - ssssssssssss"
"p-rrrrrrrrrrr-iiiiiiiiiiii- HAHAHA, that tickles!" -kkkkkkkkkk"
"fffffff-uuuuuuuu- HAHAHA, that tickles! - kkkkkkk"
And I realized that my darling husband was using Elizabeth's toy to sound out dirty swear words. Apparently the Edison Caterpillar Company employees had their thinking caps on when they developed this toy. They knew that deviants like Brian would try to make him say naughty words, so they installed a safety feature to break up the word and say ""HAHAHA, that tickles!" before they finished any type of swear.
I swung my head around the corner and gave the "wife glare." he looked up and smiled at me, caught.
"I'm just testing it. You know. To make sure she won't learn any of these words. . . "