There is a picture book called Interrupting Chicken that was first shared with my family during a story time at one of our local libraries. The librarian who enjoyed singing songs and reading books to the kids apparently hated to use puppets, but for this book she got out a small finger puppet of a chicken because….

As the little chicken is getting ready to go to sleep she asks her Dad to read her a story. He starts one of the classic fairy tales, and before he has gotten too far into the story the little chicken interrupts and retells the story to a happier ending. This happens the magical three times before the Daddy chicken gives up and tells the little chicken to tell the next story whereupon the Daddy chicken promptly falls asleep.

It’s a very enjoyable picture book, whether you tell it with a chicken puppet or not, and my family has borrowed it from the library several times.

But the power of these stories, whether things that happen in real life, or that we tell ourselves, or that we pick up from beloved books, TV, movies and novels is when they become shortcuts to explaining our lives.

Interrupting chickens has become code in my family to mean that the kids have not let me or my hubby finish anything we have started that day. And how frustrating it has been to try and help them get their needs met while simultaneously getting what we need to get done, done.

There are other short cuts in my family. 1201 is code for when you are so overwhelmed by emotion or sensory input, or noise or whatever that your brain just wants to or actually does shut down and you need a few minutes of quiet to reboot yourself. This comes from a trip to Kennedy Space Center and learning that 1201 was the code that the computer in the lunar lander sent to NASA right before Neil Armstrong had to take over piloting the lunar lander so they could land safely on the moon. The computer got overloaded with information and had to reboot 50 feet from the ground.

Another one is I am undecided about spots which is hard to explain if you’ve never watched the British version of the sitcom Coupling toward the end of the last season and watched the couple having an argument over whether their new couch cushions should have spots or stripes. But in my marriage it has come to me that we really don’t care and could the other person just make the decision please. IT is helpful to have a short hand of this, especially in public where someone might think we should both have an opinion about something.

Troll Droppings is a nice way of saying all the shit that ends up everywhere in the house the moment your child becomes mobile. But also includes the stuff the cat drops on the floor or the dog leaves lying around. Especially Troll Droppings is the morass of stuff that is on the floor and really needs to find it’s way back to its home or get dumped in the trash. Seriously where do they find all this stuff to leave on the floor? It can also include sticky finger prints, and mud tracked through the house. Pretty much anything and adult didn’t leave behind. Think Family Circus and Not Me and I Don’t Know, their friendly household poltergeists.

Do you have code in your family? Are their short cuts that explain things? Do you nerd out and answer the kids when you are going for a family drive and they want to know where that you are taking the second star on the right and going straight until morning? Do you occasionally draw out the word legendary with a wait for it in the middle?

What is the family lexicon in your life?