I was brushing my teeth, when a phrase from my son caught my attention enough for me to immediately spit out my toothpaste and peer around the door to figure out what the heck he was talking about.

Toddlers say a lot of strange phrases.  Any mother of a child in those early-talking stages will attest that they make up words and phrases by the German philosophy of linguistics – by stringing together a series of descriptives in front of the noun that most closely fits the criteria that their limited knowledge has applied to the unknown at hand.  It’s fascinating.  It’s mindbending. It’s perplexing

 And it’s occasionally downright edifying.

“Harry, what did you just say?”

“It’s Momma’s Dress Nipples.”

I shook my head.  “Excuse me?”

He spoke again, slowly, in compensation to my obvious idiocy.

“Dr–essss Nip–ppplllesss.”

And to illustrate, he held up my bright purple push-up bra.

Dress Nipples.

Obviously, the Nipples I Wear When I Dress Up.

How COULD I be so dense?

He held the bra up to my husband’s hairy chest.

“There, Daddy.  Now you are a Mermaid.”

He held the bra to his own chest.

“Now Harry is a Mermaid!”  Big smile.

“Um.  Harry,”  started my husband, “You KNOW that Mermaids are all girls, right?”

“Honey, I don’t think he has that ‘gender’ thing down yet…”  (I hope.)

So.  Uh.  NOW I know the defining characteristics of a Mermaid.  And here I thought it was the scaly TAIL.

All along it has been Dress Nipples.