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via http://ift.tt/2pUlOiU:deputychairman replied to your video “A sleepy Farmbaby reading Highlights with Grandma.l, practicing…”
Oh she’s all cuddly and sleepy!
She went to a family friend’s EIGHTH birthday party today, and she is only three, so there were a lot of MUCH bigger kids playing, and she was a little overwhelmed. Her hair is full of cake and her face is caked with dirt and she kept zoning out and staring blankly at walls. She was so tired. And she has only just given up an afternoon nap, and really isn’t totally beyond the need for it. But she was good anyway, all through family dinner with two aunts and grandma and grandpa and the farm manager [he comes to all the family dinners with good desserts in the offing {which is all of them we’re not fools}, since he lives in the attached apartment and Farmsister likes him well enough to unambiguously invite him every time].
At one point her mother had to leave the table while Farmbaby was curled up in her lap, and so she was offered her choice of anyone else to snuggle with, and she gave it very serious consideration. What a lucky kid; there were five pairs of arms outstretched ready for her! She was aware enough to notice and be pleased by this, but unsurprisingly, picked her father. (just as well, she’s damn heavy, I had the honor this morning for rather longer than I strictly wanted but sometimes the hug life chooses you.)
She perked up enough during bathtime that when Middle-Little and I came into the room together, she made a joke about the ants going marching. Which sounds like nonsense, unless you take the following into account: We’re upstate New Yorkers. Our native accent is this absolutely hideous abrasive sharp-voweled nasal bray and does not distinguish between the word “ant” and the word “aunt” (seriously, our dialect pronounces them identically and it sounds obnoxious, but if we say “auhhhhhhnt” we sound really pretentious, it doesn’t match the rest of the accent). Aunt should rhyme with haunt and taunt, but it doesn’t. Brother-in-law, a native of Illinois, admitted that it’s pronounced “ant” in his accent too and he doesn’t like it either. He really has his pick, he’s lived so many places [IL, MO, SC, and more I don’t remember], but none of them gave him a real right to a proper pronunciation of aunt so he’s sort of as stuck as the rest of us. [Also he can’t distinguish between pen and pin but that’s really more a handicap than an accent, now isn’t it.]
Farm Manager, a native of New Hampshire, looked thoughtful for a moment and confirmed that, although otherwise his accent’s not really distinct from mine, he does pronounce aunt to rhyme with haunt. Goddamn New Englanders.
Anyway. Someone has explained this in Farmbaby’s presence and she has picked up on the inherent humor that her mother’s sisters have a title indistinguishable from a type of insect, and someone I know has said something about the aunts going marching two by two, and she was on the ball enough to repeat that while sitting in the bathtub covered in bubbles, so you go, kid!
Oh she’s all cuddly and sleepy!
She went to a family friend’s EIGHTH birthday party today, and she is only three, so there were a lot of MUCH bigger kids playing, and she was a little overwhelmed. Her hair is full of cake and her face is caked with dirt and she kept zoning out and staring blankly at walls. She was so tired. And she has only just given up an afternoon nap, and really isn’t totally beyond the need for it. But she was good anyway, all through family dinner with two aunts and grandma and grandpa and the farm manager [he comes to all the family dinners with good desserts in the offing {which is all of them we’re not fools}, since he lives in the attached apartment and Farmsister likes him well enough to unambiguously invite him every time].
At one point her mother had to leave the table while Farmbaby was curled up in her lap, and so she was offered her choice of anyone else to snuggle with, and she gave it very serious consideration. What a lucky kid; there were five pairs of arms outstretched ready for her! She was aware enough to notice and be pleased by this, but unsurprisingly, picked her father. (just as well, she’s damn heavy, I had the honor this morning for rather longer than I strictly wanted but sometimes the hug life chooses you.)
She perked up enough during bathtime that when Middle-Little and I came into the room together, she made a joke about the ants going marching. Which sounds like nonsense, unless you take the following into account: We’re upstate New Yorkers. Our native accent is this absolutely hideous abrasive sharp-voweled nasal bray and does not distinguish between the word “ant” and the word “aunt” (seriously, our dialect pronounces them identically and it sounds obnoxious, but if we say “auhhhhhhnt” we sound really pretentious, it doesn’t match the rest of the accent). Aunt should rhyme with haunt and taunt, but it doesn’t. Brother-in-law, a native of Illinois, admitted that it’s pronounced “ant” in his accent too and he doesn’t like it either. He really has his pick, he’s lived so many places [IL, MO, SC, and more I don’t remember], but none of them gave him a real right to a proper pronunciation of aunt so he’s sort of as stuck as the rest of us. [Also he can’t distinguish between pen and pin but that’s really more a handicap than an accent, now isn’t it.]
Farm Manager, a native of New Hampshire, looked thoughtful for a moment and confirmed that, although otherwise his accent’s not really distinct from mine, he does pronounce aunt to rhyme with haunt. Goddamn New Englanders.
Anyway. Someone has explained this in Farmbaby’s presence and she has picked up on the inherent humor that her mother’s sisters have a title indistinguishable from a type of insect, and someone I know has said something about the aunts going marching two by two, and she was on the ball enough to repeat that while sitting in the bathtub covered in bubbles, so you go, kid!
