Dear Mom Goodester is not a word

Dear Mom Goodester is not a word

There is an age where everything a child says is something to celebrate. Then they start saying things that can’t help but make you smile. Eventually, as they get older, you realize the really, really cute things become rare. At last, there comes a point when they say something really cute you wonder if you should correct them.

This morning Claire asked me for pop tarts for breakfast. She said, “give me some poptarts for breakfast.” In my never ending effort to improve her manners I answered. “Can you think of a nicer way to say that?” I stood in the kitchen while she went through the drill. She looked up at me blinking her eyes. “Can I please have a poptart pleaseeeee?”

I handed her a poptart and went to pour her a glass of milk.
“I said please twice, that is way gooder than one time. If I had said please three times that would be the goodest.”

“Yes.” I answered, “Three times would definitely be the goodester.”
She giggled. “Daddy, that is silly. Goodester is not a word, it is only gooder.”
“You are right,” I said, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” I stood there chuckling at her observation realizing these kinds of moments were becoming more and more fleeting with every year. She would turn 6 next week and just the thought of that was a little sad.

The conversation was filled with improper grammar and words only a child could appreciate but I was not in a hurry to have these moments disappear. So, this morning, I let it go. Instead of thinking of ways to inspire my young daughter to say “May I?” and “Good, better and best.” I was instead thinking up ways to use goodester in a sentence. I was fairly sure goodester was going to be the word of the day.

“That is a good trick Carnahan learned to day, but you know what would be goodester?”
“Strawberry jam is good, honey is gooder, but seeded raspberry jam is goodester.”
“That is a great job you are doing planting those flowers. You are doing it way goodester than I do.”

I weighed the level of cuteness of each statement. It occurred to me the level of cuteness was dependent on who was listening. To friends and family gooder and goodest were pretty cute. To random people in the check out line, they were kind of embarrassing.

Today would probably be a good day to start fixing this. I was going to have to start sooner or later. Tomorrow would be gooder. Someday next week, would probably be the goodester.

Love Mike