Oh Tho Precothiouth

I referred to this story in my last post and have decided to tell it. Don't worry, it's a shorty.

A few years ago we went to Virginia to visit some friends. On one of the days we went to Washington DC to see the sights--highly recommended, beeteedubs. As we neared the end of our visit to the Museum of Natural History, Tanner came giggling over to us to report the conversation he had just overheard. We were standing in a room with a timeline of the different prehistorical eras on the wall, represented on the floor behind a glass partition by various models of small creatures that lived during the corresponding eras. The convo went something like this:

5 year old boy to a man we assume was his father, though he could very well have been his uncle or cousin, possibly even a guy from the Big Brother program, but let's get back to the story before we ruin it with speculative trivia: "What?! I didn't know there were thealth (seals) in the Methothoic Era!"

Accompanying male adult, pointing to the timeline: "Oh...no, that's the Cenozoic."

Boy: "Oh, haha. That makth more thenth."

Not sure if it was the lisp, Tanner's rendition of the lisp, the fact that a 5 year old boy would even have that conversation, the fact that Tanner was so immensely amused by it, or, most likely, some combination thereof that we have found so funny over the years, but let's just say that last line is common around here.

Upon my tenth reread I'm beginning to worry that this is one of those stories that is funnier in person than in writing. Hope not.

And fine, if it's driving you crazy the title of this post is Oh So Precocious. In lisp.