The Puwoah

"Daddy, whewe's the puwoah?" Michael asked me.

"Puwoah?" I repeated, hoping to gain insight by saying the word myself. But to no avail.

"Yes, the puwoah," he repeated. Evidently he hoped I would gain insight if he repeated it, but still nothing came to me.

Our beloved housemate, Karen, happened to be in the room at the time, and since she also happens to have a gift for decoding the speech of young children, I looked at her, hoping for enlightenment. But she shrugged helplessly.

"You know, the puwoah!" Michael said, frustration building.

"Puwoah, puwoah," I said to myself. Sometimes I have better luck by eliciting more information. "What does it do?"

"It's a sip. You know, the bwack puwoah!" Clearly something everyone knows.

Suddenly, at the same time, Karen and I looked at each other. "The Black Pearl!" we said, simultaneously. Captain Jack's ship, always good for an adventure, though in this case, an adventure in early childhood linguistics.