Lana-isms

Lana has a way with words. Or perhaps a way with reinventing them.

Sunscreen, for a very long time, was sun-scream. Which could be interpreted either as the sun can make you scream, or a variation, "suns-cream", which also makes some sense.

Sometimes when we're out walking, we pause to pick and sip honeysuckles. At which point Lana invariably comments, "My honeyknuckle tastes so sweet."

Nipples, still, are "nibbles", which again, has some logic. Sometimes she encourages her dolls to nurse from her "nibbles".

For a long time, she said "titty" for "kitty" as in "I wuv titties. Big titties. Wittle titties. Soft titties. White titties. Bwack titties. All tinds of titties."

She is now a pro reader. But one night a year or so ago, before her skills were so polished, I eaves-dropped on her "reading" a book that she had memorized. It was an adoption book called "It's Okay to be Different". When she got to the page that says, "It's okay to be small", she read "It's okay to be mini-a-ture." "It's okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub", something she knows I don't agree with, got the stink-eye. When she read "It's okay to have different hair", she considered it for a good minute before she whispered, "Yes, that's okay."

One night I was making lamb stew. Lana ambled into the kitchen and asked what was for dinner. She was perplexed by my answer.

"But not like lamb the animal, right?"

I said that indeed, it was the animal.

"But that's so sad. A little baby lamb?"

I saw her point.

There was a period when the "Juno" soundtrack was in heavy rotation. Most of it probably not at all appropriate for children ("fuck Bush and fuck this war", etc.) but we were into it. One song goes, "If you want to kill yourself, remember that I love you." Lana would sing along but her version was, "If you want to cook yourself, remember that I love you." I try to remember that whenever I'm tempted to cook myself.