The Problem with Pronouns

My three-year-olds are starting to put all the pieces of the language puzzle together. Often, with humorous results. The latest? Two different problems with pronouns.

"DON'T TOUCH MY COMPUTER!" Probably a command I bark at least once a day. It has come to my attention though that, in their attempts to maneuver the perilous roads of English grammar, my little boys don't entirely understand possessive pronouns.

Now we hear things like "That's Daddy's mycomputer" and "Where's Mommy's mycomputer?"

When I throw on an old t-shirt bearing the name of the college bar my husband worked at back in the day (shut up, you still have college t-shirts in your drawers too), one of my three-year-olds says, "Look! It's your mycomputer!"

Here's the logo:



Contrary to toddler belief, it's not a computer monitor.

It's a stylized depiction of this:



A beer schooner.

Believe me, my husband didn't hang out at a lot of places with computers in college.

And the second pronoun story?

When speaking, I never use the colloquially-used brand name for the paper product used to wipe or blow one's nose. No "Kleenex" for me. Not sure why. (I do use the product Kleenex. Only if they have the most attractive or least unattractive boxes though.)

Little H had a runny nose last week. So, all day long, I told him to "go get a tissue!"

We were waiting for G to come out of an after-school class last Wednesday when H walked up to me and said, "Mom, I need a tish-me."

Tissue. Tish-you. Tish-me. I can't get him to stop saying it. It just makes sense to him. And, I guess I can see how it does. Kind of like mycomputer.