On Saturday I asked my girls to think about where they wanted to go for lunch after church on Sunday. I suggested a few places and decided to let them choose. On the drive to church and my oldest daughter was advocating for one of the Indian restaurants in town.

We love Indian food, but the Indian restaurants around here are fancy schmancy and it is way too stressful to eat there with my 5 and 7 year olds. When I explained this to my daughter she insisted that I had suggested the restaurant as a choice for lunch the day before. She even got the eleven year old on her side.

They were so insistent that I started to believe that I must have suggested it in a moment of insanity even though I KNEW I never would have. I let it go, as I always do. Arguing with children is futile.

I kept thinking about it and as we walked into church it hit me – I had suggested the “new deli” in town and to my daughter’s brain that translated to “New Delhi” = Indian food. Everything became clear.

All four of my children are native Hindi speakers and English is their second language. For  the oldest, especially, this can cause confusion. Heck – kids are confused and confusing most of the time even when they share your mother tongue.

With their diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds my girls also tend to be sponges. This can be great! This can be not so great.

For the last few days, my seven year old (who has always been my language powerhouse) has soaked up the expression, “no more” from somewhere. I’m entirely used to my children speaking with accents, mispronouncing things and misusing words, but for some reason, every time G says, “no more” instead of “anymore” I feel a fire start to burn at the back of my neck and I have to hold myself back from biting her head off. I am consumed with a need to track down where she picked up this horrid expression and then squash the culprit. This is very unlike me.

At moments like these I realize that my inner snob is popping out. She’s pretty laid back most of the time and seems content just keeping me in check. True to her nature as a snob, she tends to ignore the children with their malaprops and mispronunciations. Most of the time she shrugs her shoulders and goes back to doing whatever it is that she does.

I suppose “no more” must be her hot button.

Things could be worse: Bad Words

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