Thursday, August 21, 2008

Reading Star Wars

We went to prepare dinner last night only to discover that the meat was frozen so we were going to have to run out and grab some dinner. After a brief discussion of our refrigerator's need to randomly freeze the meat drawer, we loaded the kids in the car and left. Joshua is reading the children's chapter book adaptation of Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie. Periodically he spells a word out loud that he is struggling with and I tell him what it is. So we are riding in the car and suddenly he says, "Wow, I guess Jabba the Hut can't speak English!" I laughed, thinking that the character, Jabba the Hut, in his book must have said a word that he couldn't sound out.
"Here, Honey, hand Mama your book and I will help you with what Jabba is saying."
He giggled and handed me the book, both of us careful to not lose the page.
So I began scanning the page for Jabba's side of the conversation. Found it easily enough and began reading.
"AHHH...WOWOGA SLEEMO MAKA PEEDUNKEEMUFKIN," Jabba replied. Uh, what?? Oh geez, he's speaking HUT, his native language.
"Joshua, this is GIBBERISH!" I exclaimed. "He's speaking in Hut, you are't supposed to be able to read it, honey!" and I handed his book back to him across the back of the seat. Daddy laughed at me. "He *did* tell you that Jabba couldn't speak English," Daddy said to me with a chuckle. Yes. Yes, he did.

So then from the backseat comes Joshua's little voice. "Ahhh...wow...wowooo...wowoga. Wowga sleee...hmmm...sleem. Ahhh wowga sleemo! Ahh wowga sleemo maka!!" My son was excitedly reading Hut. I looked at my husband and rolled my eyes. He laughed. Then Joshua shut his book and began talking to his sister....in what sounded suspiciously like fluent HUT. She answered him...also in what sounded like fluent Hut. My husband burst out laughing. He found the children talking to each other in (what I hope was faux) Hut hysterical. Evil man.

So I turned my attention to one of the local businesses we were passing and began a conversation with my husband in ordinary redneck, English about the recent demise of some small businesses. I realized that the sounds in the back seat had changed, that there was more clicking noises, and attempted to tuned it out thinking that Joshua was simply, well, making noises..when a thought occurred to me.

"I just got a mental video," I laughed to my husband. "Oh, what's that?" he asked.
"Yet another reason why our children could never go to public school. I can hear the phone call now...Mrs. S...please come and get Joshua, he is being suspended, AGAIN. Why? Oh because he has decided to speak gibberish today..oh, my mistake, to speak HUT today and refuses to converse in English. Which I could have overlooked, except that he taught it to the ENTIRE CLASS, and now NONE Of them will speak to me in anything but HUT. So come and get him!!" We both laughed.

From the back seat came more clicks and noises, then Joshua giggled. "Mama," he said with obvious glee, "I'm not even TALKING Hut anymore...I am talking in Jenosian. They are bugish like creatures that live on a desert planet. They have wings!" Then he turned to his sister and spoke in gibberish and clicks. She smiled at him and responded in gibberish and clicks. Then my husband, the traitor, looked back at them both and SPOKE IN PERFECT GIBBERISH AND CLICKS!! To which, of course they responded.

I covered my face with my hands, while my husband laughed. I am severely outnumbered.

2 comments:

justme said...

Wago ... podeefoolaaaameego!

CooksonMom said...

We are IN LOVE with Star Wars here...Victor is obsessed, and I'm not even joking! Our fave is Jaba's "Han, my bukie" One day I think Victor referred to everyone as "my bukie" at least a million times!! LOL