Psych 101 introduced me to the notion of a word salad and initially I found it quite an interesting concept while it was still a theory in my books. Then over time I actually witnessed, heard rather, quite a few word salads while I was interning in various places; attempting to become a psychologist. And now, 19 years after I first came across the concept, I’ve discovered that word salads come in lots of shapes and sizes.
Well shapes are primarily humanoid but sizes depend on the age of the person and I also discovered that this condition can be non-pathological. How does that happen you ask? I’ll tell you! It happens when you come across a child of course! And spend rather loooong stretches of time with them. The exception to that rule would seem to be Sarah Palin but let’s not open that can of worms.
Take these snippets of conversations with my flesh and blood for example:
- Yumm…this fish is delicious!!can you scratch my butt?
- I can’t do subtraction, it’s too hard OOOOH! there’s a plane!
- I promise I’ll be a good boy…HEY! there’s another plane!
- I love you so much, you’re my best friend can I have popcorn chicken?
- I don’t want to bathe because I’m not dirty and Africa has the most poisonous snakes in the world, did you know?
- I’m getting scratchy all over from wearing clothes can I watch tv upside down?
- I love Dumbo and his ears, will you make chocolate cake for me?
- I love you because you have a squishy tummy and I want spasghetti for my lunch!
These are many many more gems of its ilk are a part of my daily diet. The offspring has a mind which is extremely pliable methinks. It changes from being like a sieve to a metal vault with the blink of his beautiful long lashes. The vault is for all sorts of trivia and the sieve-like stage is during my instructions to him. Without fail.
I frequently have these “wtf” moments when he opens his mouth. And my mind promptly hashtags them as #dafuq given the times we live in and I file them away under my “Crazy Mommy and Crazier Child” blog post fodder.
Random. Structured. Haphazard. All Me. 