"MEAN, SAY! MEAN, SAY!"

This is one of J7's cutest little phrases when he was learning to talk, and it gets Hubby and me giggling every time we think of it. :) My mantra with the boys growing up, and I still say it to this day (tho not as often), is "Say what you mean, mean what you say." T12 didn't repeat that much while growing up, but I had to say that a LOT to J7. I had to make him repeat what I said to make sure he understood what I said, and in this particular instance, "Say what you mean, mean what you say" somehow turned into, "MEAN, SAY! MEAN, SAY!" J7 gave his older brother some SERIOUS grief over that little four-word phrase, lemme tell ya!

Now comes the tough part...getting J7 to balance the literal with the general. Ugh. That boy sees EV-ER-Y-THING in black and white. There is no gray. No rainbow colors, either, come to think on it. ;) Figure of speech means absolutely nothing to him. He does not take jokes and pranks well, either. Okay, so maybe I have soooooomething to do with that. Sigh. I don't like jokes that potentially hurt feelings. I don't like them done to me, and I don't like them done to other people. J7 just takes it a ((biiiiiiig)) step further. The Bible talks plenty about joking around (you can find "jest" and "sport", as in meaning "fun", in your STRONG'S concordance), but there are some genuinely funny things that happen with words, especially if they're homonyms or homophones. He finds many things funny, especially if it's in the bodily noise department (I know, groan, lol), but if he gets the idea that you're trying to trick him with words, you are in for a whollop-packed, pint-sized showdown. After all, "MEAN, SAY! MEAN, SAY!" means "SAY what you MEAN, and MEAN what you SAY!"

It's a curious observation what he might do with this perspective. I have no idea if I have the best lawyer on my hands, or the absolute worst one you can imagine. : P
I mean, I know I'm a "wordee" myself, and from time to time I might inappropriately pick you apart about words, most times w/o even realizing that I'm doing it. ((for that, I'm horribly sorry!)) However, I'm also finding that I seem to be more scatter-speeched than ever before. I'm SERIOUS!! I feel like that I can't get a sentence together w/o inadvertently mixing up certain details in what I want to say, or I got off into a seemingly unrelated tangent. It's as frustrating as it can be! :( I know lots of parents and teachers end up naming the wrong child b/c they're talking to one while looking at another, or people will mix up a couple of words to make new ones. It goes beyond that. At any given time I might mix up some thoughts as well as words and come out with an entirely different speech altogether. My mind constantly scrambles through "the best way to phrase such-n-such", and I more often than not end up with stuff that makes no sense no matter how you slice it, dice it, or even julienne fry it. That is hardly an example of "MEAN, SAY! MEAN, SAY!"

Can you tell I do better at writing than talking?? At least I have to THINK for a long time how I want to say something, and I've got that ever blessed BACKSPACE key. : D I tell you, that's the first key that gets worn off my keyboard, lol. I thank God every day that I'm born in THIS age and time so that I don't have to spend so much of my writing time w/ the correction tape (although I should've bought stock in it the 5 years I typed!!) or the White-Out (another company I was too young to buy stock in b/c I was doing high school research papers, lol). I can spend my 3 hours to make my "perfect" two-paragraph story, lol. THAT most times ends up saying what I mean so that what I mean IS what I'm saying. : ) J7 will be happy to know that, lol. : )