sick

juancho (my 2-year-old nephew and [bias alert] the cutest little boy this side of the world) and I were watching a barney video (his choice, needless to say) when he suddenly declared, "no barney. i yant to yatch sick."

as you may probably have guessed, he's not the best enunciator. around 80% of the time, we need his mother to interpret an otherwise nonsense utterance. when he was younger, "hng hng da" meant "winnie the pooh" -- don't ask.

so as my brain struggled with what that last sentence meant, i asked him to clarify. "sick?" i asked.

"sick! sick! sick!"

"no more barney?"

"no! sick!"

yes, juancho, barney is a sick, pathetic excuse for a mascot, but what can i ...

"sick! pweez, sick!"

"juancho, i'll show you the discs, ok? you show me sick."

so i carried the boy (also known as the downfall of all our lower backs) so he could see the stack of vcds and dvds on the shelf. i showed him a picture of chip from beauty on the beast.

"chip?"

"no, sick!!!" he was obviously getting frustrated.

i frantically looked at each cd cover. "charlie brown? baby snuffy? bear in the big blue house?" and then i saw it -- a 4-disc box of "sex and the city" season 1. no way. can he be saying ...? NO WAY!!! he's too young! how can he possibly ...

"sick sick sick sick sick!!!"

"juancho i can't understand you!!!"

and we just stared at each other with eyes that mourned our communication gap. then i had an idea.

"i know, juanch! let's go downstairs and ask tita mia what 'sick' means, ok?"

he seemed to nod in agreement (or fatigue, not sure) and we asked my younger sister. after just 3 "sicks" from juanch, mia got it.

"he wants to watch SHREK."

when i finally showed him the cd, he let out a squeal (a shrek, har har) of delight. "siiiiiiiiick!"


p.s. it was all worth it. by the end of the movie, juanch was clapping his hands, saying "good job, sick!"