Awkward!

Do you ever find that a particular word or phrase worms its way into your daily speech more often than any other?  Although it doesn't speak highly of my intelligence, I can remember (with clarity) the frequency with which I incorporated Cher's "as if" catchphrase from the movie "Clueless" into my vernacular.



Not my proudest moments.

If asked, I would have been hard-pressed to pinpoint a favorite phrase of my boys since the "bust your buffers" and "cinders and ashes" era of train dominated jargon.  I suppose one could refer to the near constant feed of potty talk and anatomical terms that pop up in our everyday conversations, but I much prefer to think of those as accidents and not an intentional effort to render me hairless before I'm thirty.

In the last week, however, Cael has taken to shouting "AWKWARD!" whenever the spirit moves him, and without a proper understanding of the meaning of the word, he tends to make the exclamation at inappropriate times.  Then again, if hearing my son mutter "awkward" while he's alone in the bathroom isn't awkward in and of itself, I'm not sure what is.

But what began as something funny and quirky has turned into bizarre and overused.

"Mom, what's for lunch?"

"How about pizza and veggies?"

"Pizza?  Awkward!"



"Graham, Iron Man is mine!  You can't play with him, you're too awkward."



"Dear God, thanks for baseball.  And thank you for superheroes and hot chocolate and keys and squirrels.  Amen.... awkward!"


There are always worse things, I suppose.  Cael could be swearing like a sailor in public or church, or he could spout vitriol toward his brother or other people I care about.  (Like Papa, maybe?)

For that matter, he could even regress back to the good ol' days of confronting strangers about their genitalia.  Because that wasn't awkward at all...