Household Utterances

I've come to cherish the idea that we will continue to be blessed through the seasons with the birthing of our very own personal as well as distinctive household utterances for which only our immediate family members will be privy as to their true meaning.

For quite some time now, the word set-up has been a commonly used idiom within our household that was originally and skillfully dreamed up by our oldest daughter in the very early stages of her diverse vocabulary development (we always tell her she's so advanced). Over the years, the word was successfully passed down to her three younger siblings, each of whom have embraced, nurtured, and developed their own earnest definition of what a set-up really is.

In the beginning, a set-up was merely a thoughtful arrangement of one particular type of toy such as plastic animals, matchbox cars, blocks, shells, rocks, basically anything that had more than one of itself. Quantity was key, and my children learned to busy themselves for hours lining up their treasures in straight, even little rows, up and down tables, couches, beds, and hallways.

In most recent years, however, sibling contributions offering varying definitions began to distort the original 1997 version of the set-up and a newer, more modern translation was born which took on quite an array of different meanings altogether.

For the younger ones, a set-up must make use of any and all stockpiles from all over the house including scraps of material, Frisbees, old diaper cloths, potholders, foam letters, and of course, objects of their affection: the priceless jewels which are scooped up randomly from the floors of various department and grocery stores and secretly pocketed without my permission for set-up distribution at a later date. And God forbid that Mom should fathom any such request to have it all picked up at the end of the day. On the contrary, I am given explicit instructions to step unobtrusively around these so-called construction sites for days on end.

Now the newly revised pre-teen/teen version has an entirely different concept. We don't use our toys.

My daughter calls this her chili set-up, because she doesn't like to be labeled as the extremely picky eater that she is. She does have an interesting way of sorting and stacking and lining up each piece of celery and tomato in an informal, yet creative pattern along the border, doesn't she? By golly, I think I may just have another advanced child.

I was also recently reminded by this same daughter (who wandered off with my camera to further develop her own unique style of subject matter) that there are set-ups which we have absolutely no control over. After downloading the pics to my photo album the other day, I inquired (ever so calmly) as to what it was exactly that she had snapped a picture of which had most assuredly defiled my camera lens.

"It's a set-up, Mom. A coyote set-up," she bantered.

Yep, she's definitely advanced.