Wit and Wiffdom

Our children are both still young enough that bathing them together seems like very much a non-issue, so much so that it’s our default approach for getting from the sticky end of dinnertime to the finish line of bedtime. If anything has the potential to convince either my wife or myself to deviate from that pattern, it’s the caprice of our son on a day when we’re carefully picking our battles with him (which, let’s be honest, is most days).

Somewhere along the line, my wife (perfectly capable of capriciousness herself) asked the little guy if he wanted to take that night’s bath “Wit your sister? Or not wit?” in a hilarious Pat’s King of Steaks accent (or approximation thereof). Unsurprisingly, the little guy found this blatant mispronunciation of simple English appalling and unacceptable, which was hilarious enough in itself to virtually guarantee that would be the way my wife would always ask him the same question every night.


What’s even funnier, of course, is when the little guy tries to correct mommy, complete with his own three-year-old speech peculiarities: “No, Mommy! It’s not ‘wit’! It’s ‘WIFF’!” Gets me every time.