"can't yove you baaaack..."

Okay, so it's no secret that Ned and Kai Lan spend too much time with each other. (Okay, okay, lest you get the wrong idea about me and everything I claim to be, Ned watches Kai Lan at most an hour a day. And then no more TV. Just to clear that up. Ahem.)

Anyway, Kai Lan, Tolee, HoHo, Rintu--the whole gang--all regularly say "love" with reference to objects or events. Like, "I love YeYe's dumplings!" or "I love Chinese New Year!" So Ned started picking up this colloquialism. "I yove olives!" or "I yove digging in dirt!"

So, one day, I said, "Nedy, you can't love olives because they can't love you back. You like olives. Get it?"

Yeah, she got it. A little too well.

Every time anyone, including Kai Lan and her cast of characters, says "love" with reference to something incapable of feelings, Ned corrects them. Every.Freakin'.Time. Like, without fail. From across the room when you swore for sure she was concentrating on putting a puzzle together you might, for the sake of example, hear "can't yove you baaaack..." in response to a simple utterance about how much you loooove chocolate. For example. Ahem.

And, since that day of the love vs. like discussion, she has completely changed her own speech. She uses "like" almost exclusively for non-creatures (how else do I say it?) now and, if in an excited lapse of reason utters "love" (or "yove", as the case may be) about olives, she quickly corrects herself, "Oooops, I mean I yike oyives, dey can't yove me back."

It is hilarious. Adorable. And occasionally annoying. Because maybe chocolate does "yove" me back...

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