A few years ago my oldest sister and her family were in Arkansas for a visit. I was chatting with my sister in my room while my nephew was playing near by. I think he must have been about 5 or 6 at the time. I don’t remember the conversation excatly but after a few minutes my nephew looked up and said to me, “You sure like to say the word whatever a lot huh?” Well being the good aunt I am, I gave him some examples of when he should use it – much to his mom’s chagrin I’m sure. He got the hang of it pretty quickly and spent the rest of the trip using it whenever possible. But what did I care? After all he was only going to be around for a few days.
A few weeks later, I made the trip up to see them. We were all sitting around the dinner table one night when his dad told him to do something. His response? “Whatever.” Well, needless to say this did not go over well with his dad and my nephew got in trouble. As the meal and other conversation continued, my nephew looked at me and with the best scowl a 5 year old can muster he mouthed the words, “You are fired!” Fired from what I’m not sure. Being his aunt? Teaching him new words? I dunno. But it was hilarious and it was all I could do to not bust up laughing right then. The lesson must not have really been learned because a couple of weeks later I was asked to talk with him on the phone and try to convince him to stop saying it. I think I told him it was a secret word between the two of us and not to let anyone else in on it. No clue if that worked or not but…*shoulder shrug* whatever.
Nandango 
I remember that. AWKWARD (but actually, I was laughing the ENTIRE time). Rather than teaching him sassy words, I discussed in the length the benefits of the French using the guillotine as opposed the Henry VIII’s command use of the axe. I’m grooming him to be the world’s biggest dork at age 11.
Pammy Girl: I hope you mean you remember hearing about the story b/c you weren’t there. I was visiting with mom and Robert. As for the guillotine or the axe they are both equally gruesome and I vote for being shot.
I wasn’t there for the original part of the story. I was there, however, for the phone call you had with him on your ‘secret’ word as I was visiting mom at the time and he was there, too.
If I remember correctly, Utah is one of the last hold outs for execution by firing squad. Apparently it’s pretty messy and if the one guy (out of the 12 or so officers) who has the bullet is a crap marksman, you have the joy of suffering until you die. That or they patch you up, let you heal for a few days and then send you out for another try. Good times.
That’s so cute. “You’re fired.” Are you the cool aunt or is Pammy?
I remember it all – he held onto that word forever and it was so annoying!! Hurry up and have kids already so that I can repay the favor. 🙂
BTW Pammy – a couple of months ago he actually asked me some follow up questions on King Henry and when I wasn’t sure he followed up with a comment on why I didn’t know anything good but how I should because I’m the oldest… Guess info is your forte; you’re good at it and he loves the info! We clearly need to get you two in the same room again soon. 🙂
Pammy Girl: That would kind of suck if they were a crappy shot. But I would still rather take my chances with the gun rather than the guillotine or axe.
Billy: Did you really have to ask? Hands down it’s me all the way!
lynnard: I think you’re going to be waiting around for a very, very long time for the chance at pay back. In the meantime, I’m sure I can come up with something else for him to annoy you with…at my pure amusement of course.
Talking back and best forms of execution. You two must be a couple of dream aunties!
I would hope that if you actually survived the firing squad the first time, that they’d let you go.
Puleeze… it’s totally me. Billy: she’s lying and she knows it.
Lynnard: I do need to spend more time with him, teaching all sorts of facts no one really needs to know. Maybe for Christmas I could get him the genius edition of Trivial Pursuit!!!
morethananelectrician: We do our best! I would hope they would let me go as well. But surviving might give them the encouragement to try harder.
Pammy Girl: It is so me. It’s my blog and I say so. Period.
Kids are total sponges aren’t they. My girlfriends two year old is just absorbing everything. We’re afraid his first full sentence will involve an absurd amount of curse words or sexual inneuendo.
You can’t make that stuff up. I wish you could bottle the essence of a 5-yr old and sprinkle on yourself when you need it.
Sarah: HAHA!! Yep, if I had kids that would probably what they would say first as well.
Allison: I wish I could too. Although some things they say would make an adult look completely weird whereas the kid would get a laugh.