You unnerstand?
Bonnie walked into my office this afternoon with this stunned look on her face. Then she told me the story.
Our soon-to-be five year old James was on the floor in the family room playing with his toys. Cars and trucks, as usual. He loves the wheeled stuff. Later he was giving Bonnie a blow-by-blow of his playtime.
Most of the babble was lost to Bonnie, as it usually is to me. It's too much to keep up with sometimes, especially when you're concentrating on something else. But she tuned in for the end.
"I had to line up all the cars and trucks, capiche?" James said.
Capiche. Stopped Bonnie dead. 1940's slang derived from conversational Italian (capisci, do you understand?) isn't something he hears a lot of around the house. That he'd know the word and what's more, know how to use it, was a moment.
Yeah, we figured out where he heard it. But I'm not gonna tell you. Where's the fun in that?