Do you know how to spell FLUMP?

C and O called me over to the kitchen with great excitement yesterday. "Look Mommy! Look what we spelled!!" They were so proud when they showed me how they had arranged their refrigerator magnets to spell "FLUMP". And I cheered!

You see, "flump" is a word that O made up to describe sliding down the stairs on his bottom. I think it came from the thump, thump, thump sound it makes as his bum hits each step. And C quickly caught on, picking up both the word and the activity. Both boys are both perfectly capable of walking down the stairs, but sometimes they just like to flump! They even have flumping races. This morning, O slowly slid across the living room on his bum. When I asked him what he was doing he said "I'm flumping, Mommy!" Oh. I didn't realize one could flump just anywhere. I had previously assumed it was only stair related.

And despite the fact that my spell checker is lighting up all over this post, I was thrilled when the boys spelled FLUMP on the fridge. Why? Because even if it's a made up word, they spelled it out phonetically, and it made sense. And that's pretty impressive to me! I am quite sure their spelling is correct.

Even if my spell checker doesn't like it.


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On a whim, after writing this post, I decided to look up "flump". I knew that O had just made up the word, so I wasn't expecting to find anything. I was wrong.

According to the online Merriam-Websters dictionary, flump IS a word!

Flump

Pronunciation: \ˈfləmp\

Etymology: imitative

Date: 1729

intransitive verb : to move or fall suddenly and heavily

transitive verb : to place or drop with a flump

Wow! So flumping was indeed what the boys were doing when they flopped down the stairs on their bottoms. I guess my 2 year old has been reading the dictionary in his spare time.