The word fairy

Last weekend was a confluence of words and tooth fairy false alarms.

I’m sure the old fairy was tired of seeing the red flashing light and alarm when Beau chewed on a sandwich and his little front bottom tooth flexed gently into his gum, letting a little blood out.

I told the boys we were going to get groceries.

“That’s disgusting,” Chicky over-enunciated the ‘g’ to accurately portray his displeasure at performing such a mundane task.

“It’s not disgusting,” I laughed.

“Yes it is, it’s disgusting,” he responded.

Later on, preparing for the park, I tied the last shoelace and said “Andiamo” as we moved toward the front door.

Beau is starting to learn Italian at school and I am trying to absorb it for my trip.

Chick has the strongest inflection in his Italian words. He even, like his dad, makes up words in mythical Italian for laughs, usually his own — again, not dissimilar from his dad.

He concentrated on asking me out to lunch, even though I have to make it for him.

“Andiamo a pranzo, Daddy!”

“Si, si. I’m making it now guys, just keep playing”.

I presented the food on the table.

“That’s disgusting.”

“It’s not, you eat it all the time.”

“Disgusting,” a little voice quietly reaffirmed.

“Hey, Chick, I’ll give you another word to use — say ‘superfluous’. ”

“Soperflous,” smiling. “What does it say, Daddy?” his eyebrow cocked.

“Too much, my little man, it means too much.”

With their mum, eating dinner, which was again ‘disgusting’, the boys asked her to lunch in Italian and made up their own words.

Chicky looked at his dessert and stared up at his mum with his big blue eyes and said, “This is soperflous”.

Beau carefully placed his fork into the side of his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. The tooth fairy isn’t far off now. Andiamo fairy, Beau has superfluous teeth!