By the title of this post, you might think that I would be writing about older women and likening their speech to truck drivers.

Not even close.

As it turns out, it’s more about what Jacob and I encountered at the park the other day (whew! And also, what?). No, we didn’t run into a bunch of old women at the park arguing over a heated game of Bridge…

Let me start from the beginning.

I took Jacob to the park – as you may have guessed, taking him places is one of my favorite things to do! We found a park not far from us that has two different play areas for the kids. It’s a really great park! Before we left, I asked Jacob if he wanted to go to a new park. He replied: “New pahpm!” (That’s how he says “Park”)

As a quick aside, I’ll let you in a little detail of Jacob’s speech pattern. On several words, he adds an “m” sound – “ball” comes out “bahpm”, “Park” is “pahpm” and “Dada” is… “Dada” – what’d you think I was gonna say? He gets lots of words right, too ya know. Anyway, we understand him. Most of the time…

So off we went to the new park. When we got there, there were lots of kids. There were a bunch of 4-6 year-olds playing, and there was also a group of about 7 teenagers – I still have no idea why they were there, but there they were in all their sagging pants-ed glory, swearing like little foul-mouthed trolls for all the little kids to hear. I was appalled. I would have left if I had noticed them before leaving the car, but Jacob was already out and running saying “New pahpm” over and over again. I decided I’d try my best to keep him out of ear-shot.

Two more things I want to share with you: 1. Jacob seems to really like older girls. He is really taken with the 6 year-olds and up. It’s adorable to watch, and, 2. He calls all other children “baby” – whether they are or aren’t. As you might imagine, this causes complications sometimes.

Sure enough, there was a 6 year-old girl there named Maria. It didn’t take long for Jacob to notice her. He had picked up an acorn and then he noticed her. He said:

“Baby!”

And started to walk toward her. When he got there, I told him to say “hi” – he only says “hi” and “bye” on occasion. He proceeded to pull a piece off of the acorn and tried to hand it to Maria, who wouldn’t take it. She muttered something to her mom in a foreign language (I didn’t recognize it at all) and her mom seemed to say: “take it from him and be nice” (again, hard to be sure, but Maria reluctantly took the piece of acorn, so one could only assume). Maria really wasn’t having it though. She seemed to be embarrassed by my boy. I asked her how old she was and she told me she was 6. She asked me how old Jacob was and I told her he was going to be 2 in December, to which she replied: “oh, so he’s 1.”

Really?

“No, you little diva, he’s almost 2. 1 year-olds can barely walk, let alone run and most of them don’t have very many teeth. Besides, he’s much nicer than you! Accept the gift of acorn bit he’s giving you!”

Don’t worry, I didn’t say any of that. I just started feeling defensive while writing this…

Back to the story.

Maria decided to walk away. Jacob gave the acorn to her mom (I know, so sweet, right?) and started to go after her. She then collected another little boy who was probably around her age and brought him over to us and proceeded to tell me that he was her boyfriend. I replied “ok” – I wasn’t really sure what to do. It was weird on so many levels.

1. Jacob just wanted to play – he doesn’t know anything of boyfriend/girlfriend. Even though he is smitten with older girls…

2. Isn’t 6 a little young to be dating anyway? I always thought 9 was the right age… (*confused face*) (If she was my daughter, 25 would be the right age, but I digress)

Jacob then tried to engage both of them. They ran. My heart broke for him. All he wanted to do was play and interact with other kids. Ok, maybe he had the hots for Maria – we’ll never really know, will we?

It’s funny, because I felt for him, and he didn’t seem to care. Not even a little bit. He was on to the next thing. (A good lesson in life – don’t take things personally. If someone reacts in a less-than-favorable way with you, don’t take it personally! Move on to the next!)

For Jacob, the next thing was the swings.

As I followed him to the swings, we had to walk around the swings where the older teens were swinging, throwing their shoes and swearing (I’m telling you, the little kids were way more well-behaved than these idiots)

Thankfully, Jacob decided that he wanted to go “Jahbm” (Driving, for those of you who missed that post)

He walked towards someone else’s car – I said “Buddy, we need to go to OUR car.” He replied: “AhCah” (Our car. Yes, I know he’s adorable despite the fact that I’m totally biased…) We walked hand in hand to “AhCah” and I let him get behind the wheel for a little bit. Then I put him in his seat and we were off.

He started to get a little upset, saying “Pahpm! Pahpm!” I asked him if he wanted to eat, or if he wanted to go to a different park.

He said: “Dim Pahpm!”

So off we went to a “Dim Pahpm”

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Jacob’s Daddy

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