When I was in school, I had to learn all kinds of useless knowledge. I had an English teacher who insisted we work through the Reader's Digest "Increase Your Word Power" book, and one of the words I had to learn to spell was sphygmomanometer (Wiki link provided for your learning pleasure if you?re not familiar with it). As a parent, I felt duly compelled to pass some of this useless information on to my (at the time) young male offspring. I mean really ? you must admit, it?s pretty funny to see little tiny kids spout out big words. Besides, if I had to have all these useless things floating around in my head then I was going share them with someone (even if he was too little to care.)

In addition to making him lean how to say the word, I also made him learn the definition. Now I know, he probably didn?t really understand, but still, I made the effort to make it more than just a little-kid-sounds-cute-saying-big-stuff-they-don?t-understand thing. I taught him how to say sphygmomanometer, and he could spit it out when he was at the pediatrician?s office. He also knew the fun fill in the blank: The sum of the square of the sides of a right triangle equals the square of the ______. Oh come now! You know it right? I know some of you do. (For those of you who are geometrically challenged ? the answer would be hypotenuse.) He could then follow it up by answering the question - And that?s called the?? (Pythagorean theorem is the correct answer to that one.)

But the topper for me was always the really big one. It?s the longest word in the English language (so I?m told by my male offspring). Not only could he spout it out but it was followed instantly by ?and that means the separation between church and state and that means the government shouldn?t be involved in the church and the church shouldn?t be involved in the government.? And the little bugger managed to say the entire thing, big word from the title included, without stopping for a breath. (Yes ? he gets that fro me. Seems we a knack for managing the flow of air fro our lungs when necessary to say big long impressive things or when we're on a roll and stopping for air would be simply a waste of valuable time or perhaps we hit 40 and we're afraid we'll forget what we were saying if we don't get it out all at one time. Now where was I?...)

So the other day when he insisted I stop what I was doing to watch a commercial on TV, although I was less than enthusiastic about doing do, I found myself with a big grin on my face. Take a peek at this:

I?ve added it to my funny videos so whenever I need a good smile I can take a gander at this wee little guy! And for the record ? male offspring was not much older than this when he learned to say it. Ah the good old days - when they said what you wanted on cue. Not so anymore I'm afraid. I just don't know where he got his stubborn and opinionated ways! (NO...NO...NO! No comments from the peanut gallery!! I know what you're thinking and surely he didn't inherit that from me.)