Monkey House

One of the first words that Cole really learned and used on a consistent basis was “hat.” It was cute, and continues to be cute. For a while, he referred to his actual hats correctly as “hat.” And then this extended to other objects that were vaguely hat-like… for example, an overturned bucket.

The ‘hat’ thing lost its novelty to the monkey. He still knew what it was when we had to put one on him, but he didn’t really get stoked to be using the word or making impromptu hats. Until the other night. We have been letting him hold his after-dinner facecloth and do some preliminary ‘cleaning up’ of his hands and his face. Out of the blue, he moves the cloth up to his head, and says proudly, “HAT!”

Having presence of mind, Alex snapped off this cute pic:
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One of the fascinating things to witness is the monkey’s exploding vocabulary. He picks up on words that we didn’t even go that far out of our way to teach him. And from patting the bed or a chair while calling the dogs, he has learned a little something, too:

-Cole (patting the bench at his picnic table): “Sit! Sit! Cover!” (trying to say ‘color’ actually)

-Cole (patting the bed near the pillows): “Sit! Sit! Book!”

-Cole (patting the loveseat): “Sit! Sit! Book!” (OK, there’s not much variety. )

But for the most part, you can either tell what he means to say (‘puh-keen’ for pumpkin) or he actually says it quite clearly (‘zeus’ has graduated to a nice clear ‘juice’). Of course he still babbles a lot, too, which always cracks us up. But recently there emerged a word that he says with very clear intentions. It’s not just babble, and it is very well articulated:
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There’s not much cuter than a toddler in a costume. And as biased parents, we think there’s absolutely nothing cuter than our little monkey dressed as… well… a monkey, of course!

We’re not monkey-obsessed despite the blog theme. In fact, the little guy was originally going to go as an elephant. However, despite concerns that the costume was going to be too big for him, the opposite turned out to be true: he wouldn’t fit into it! Aunt Christine to the rescue… having seen an awfully cute monkey costume at Old Navy, she was originally sad that we already had the elephant costume. Fate dictated that she have just the right reason to go back for it and provide her nephew a costume for his 2nd ever Hallowe’en. Read the rest of this entry »