alexander discovers a new word (lyn)

My son Alexander may not think of me as a horse, but he does think of me as a nag, as in “to annoy by constant scolding,” not as in “a horse that is in old or poor condition.”

With him, I am a nag.  He thinks I was born this way.  I explain that he’s wrong.  I became this way when I got pregnant, and the nagging gene lay dormant until just a few years ago.  I can ask him to do three things and if he does one of them, I’m lucky.  Usually, he ignores my requests.  There is no correlation between the enormity of my requests and his willingness to act on them.   “Please empty the dishwasher,” is forgotten as quickly as, “Did you select your courses, yet?  They are due tomorrow!”

Recently, Alexander created a new word to describe by persistent and futile questions to him.  Rather than use the word nag, he stumbles upon a word he likes better.  For the past few weeks, he’s been taunting me by saying, “What are you nickering about?”  He assumes the word nickering does not exist,  but decides to check the dictionary anyway.   To his delight (and my dismay) nickering is a real word.

nickering – to neigh softly             and even worse, uttering sounds (not necessarily words).