Gomez?

You know you've done it. Especially as a parent, given the non-stop talking. (What that's just my house? Oh, my bad.) I'm talking about Inactive Listening. This most sanity saving ineffective listening technique can be defined as hearing someone speak, but only half paying attention to what that someone is saying. You catch key words, phrases, the more important things, just not all the details. Yep. I'm guilty. Sometimes, when my kids talk to me, which is, like, all-doggone-day-long never, I sometimes am only sort of paying attention. My mind is busy thinking of the running to-do list that floats around my head, concentrating on not chopping my finger off (not that that's ever happened, ahem) or... a bazillion other things going on. For me, these someone's are usually short. Like monkeys. For you? Maybe your spouse, mother, mother-in-law? 

Consequently, this is also the same technique your children are applying when you are lecturing them for the umpteenth time about picking up their stinkin' (and in some cases that's literal) shoes. Or about manners, or making wise choices. Or.. You get the picture.

I do wonder, though, if this is how kids miss what is said that can lead to some funny versions of what they repeat.

Anyway, that is how this story was born.

This summer, we got Netflix. When the kids get to fighting, or fighting over what they want to watch, Mrs. Bananas (that's me) gets to choose. Instead of picking some show that lasts only 20 minutes, I pick a nice long movie, to prolong the break from fighting. One such day, my choice was not the best but I was busy trying not to chop off my finger and quickly prepare some sustenance for the hungry natives who needed a distraction. Which would be why I wasn't really monitoring what was on. My bad. There were questionable things. Hey, it was a movie about babies. Who thought talking babies would swear (mildly) and use innuendo???

Today, Koko was recounting one of the "funnier" parts of the story. As you might have guessed, I was applying the Inactive Listening technique. She was saying something about one of the babies kicking some man and another baby laughing and commenting about it.

This is when Koko quotes something about kicking Gomez.

"Gomez?" I asked. "What?" Clearly confused.

She giggled, pointed "down there" and said, "you know, his Gomez."

After I died laughing, I let her know that the "correct" term is 'gonads.'

At the lunch table, she then corrected her brother about this, and explained to him that Gomez is someone's last name. Gonad's are what's "down there."

Oh my.