Wrong On So Many Levels

We got a paper in the mail encouraging us to be "kindness ninjas," people that go out and perform anonymous acts of kindness for others. This led to a discussion of ninjas, a look at Google images, a visit to You Tube, and a wrap up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My girl's curiosity is thorough to say the least.

Ana has trouble remembering certain words correctly. She comes by it honestly. In 9th grade I mispronounced the word "gesture," out loud... in speech class. I guess I had never had to say it anywhere other than in my head. Well, I cracked the class up and you'd think my burning shame would have caused the proper pronunciation to be burned into my mind, but alas, to this day I have to pause approximately 20 seconds while I run all possible pronunciations through my mind to determine the one least likely to get me laughed at.

This turned out to be the case with Ana and "ninja." To Ana, it sounded somewhat similar to a female private part, and therefore morphed into the word "va-ninja". Despite lots of practice and intervention, it remained "va-ninja." Sigh.

Flash forward to a recent trip to the mall. We stopped into Claire's so that Ana could check out the bling. Also visiting at the same time was a woman in a burka. Yep. You can see where I'm going with this.

In voz alta:

Mom! Look!!! It's a real va-ninja!!!