still on vacation

So, we have this CAT. I might've mentioned. And LV named it Sofia. And fairly quickly, that turned into the cat's being addresses as "So" or "so so: (appropriately enough) or "soey-so." LV, she likes the nicknames.

And that was it for awhile until she watched some cartoon or something where some character greeted another by saying "Hiya dodo." We can't put our fingers on it, but we have a vague memory of hearing that phrase coming from the TV whilst we were in the other room doing something, not parenting clearly. So from there, she started saying "Hiya dodo" to the CAT. Or at least thats what we were hearing. What she was hearing was more like, "Hi ya-dodo." Like, "ya dodo" was Sofia's new name. She explained as much. And from there is quickly turned into, "Yo Do" (rhymes with "mofo") as the new name for the CAT.

[Where is she going with this weird narrative? Is it going to be some interesting and insightful observations about kids and the pliability of signifiers? It is not, I assure you]

So, here we are in this vacation house in a place that is lousy with lizards. Every time we walk outside we see 4 at least. And Vee, she loves them. And one morning, she saw one scamper away really quickly and announced, "It runs like Yo Do!" So then immediately lizards became "Yo Do"s. And every morning she opened the door to look for "yo-do"s. Improper noun, now. And one day we were yo-do spotting and we saw a particularly gorgeous one with a puffed out red neck and I said, "Wow, look how pretty." And she goes, "Oh, it's a yo-pretty!"

From there, lizards were only "yo-pretties." And over the subsequent 48 hours, "yo-pretty" became a term of endearment for mom and dad as well. Within 2.5 days, we were all walking around referring to each other and getting each other's attention with, "Yo-pretty." A day after that, it had been shortened to "yo-prid" (rhymes with "whoa, kid"). And was being used constantly as a generalized noun.

[Seriously, the fuck? Is this what happens to academic brains in the summer?]

Tonight, we went to the home of some distant relatives who live in this town. I've never met them before. They are significantly older. They cooked a lovely meal that we ate on their lovely lanai as we listened to the sounds of the water feature in their pond. And my kid ran around all night yelping about yo-prids in the grass and running up to Mr. V and me, addressing us as yo-prid. And when we go to leave and remind Vee to say her thank you's, she formulates them as, "Thanks, yo-prids!"

[This used to be such a great feminist blog. I wish B would write more. I sympathize, I do.]

And throughout this dinner, I see the weird look the relatives get everytime she says "yo-prid" but I can't bring myself to offer any explanation, because seriously. You just read the explanation. Not only is it long and tedious, it is lame. And it occurs to me as we are leaving that this, the weirdness of inside jokes/language that are basically inscrutable, semiotically completely illegible, but leaving very legible traces of the fact that their weirdness comes from a mutually constituted formative process - a person has no idea *what* any of you are talking about, but is very clear that you have formed this weird language trough your collective weirdness - this is maybe in fact just what family is. A group if weird yo-prids.

[Maybe there's a new post at Jezebel.]