Kansas Balls and Spicy Hair

Sometimes kids will say things for weeks, or months, before you realize what they actually mean. Yesterday I had the 'Eureka!' moment where I finally figured out what on earth James has been talking about. For about six weeks, James has been referring to 'Kansas balls'. I thought maybe this was something he picked up on Old Yeller, since he began saying it around the same time as he watched the movie. The context of the phrase is usually something like 'I shoot Kansas balls at you!' Or 'I'm gonna shoot that bird with a Kansas ball!' Last night, we were asking him what a Kansas ball was. 'You know,' he said, 'the things the pirates shoot!' Duh. Canon balls. Another James-ism has been 'spicy hair'. This morning he said 'Katie has spicy hair, Mom.' Every now and then he asks for his hair to be spicy. Now this one didn't take much figuring out; he meant 'spiky.' Pretty soon Katie, and even Cheepa will be adding to the verbal translation fun and I'll have to change the name of my James Commentary column!