Monkey House

Let me preface this by saying: we only have one child. Compared to multi-child families, we don’t know anything about ‘tired’. But each person only knows their own reality, so that’s all I can really say by way of apology.

I took the monkey to the Canadian Museum of Nature today. My wife had let me sleep in quite late. Other than the dogs interrupting me for their breakfast, I slept until 12:30, for which I was extremely grateful. To return the favour, I wanted to give her an afternoon of ‘her’ time. Not that I had much of a choice, because as we ate our lunch, the monkey asked, “Daddy, going to take me to see DINOS next?” I shifted my gaze to meet Alex’s and asked, “did YOU tell him that?”
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“Dipper,” “Dunk-Dunk,” and “Boop” are three different semi-sensical words used by three different children as a label for the same thing: ketchup. The latter happens to be the one our monkey uses (indeed, any goopy sauce or dressing is “boop”).

I don’t get it. This is a kid who can pronounce “Deinonychus” correctly. The two beautiful little munchkins with “Dipper” and “Dunk-Dunk” are equally eloquent. Surely the words “ketchup” or “sauce” are not beyond their linguistic capabilities.

So I don’t get it.

But all the same, I’ve learned to love and embrace it. Because when they’re done with their own language and use nothing but the boring language of adults, surely an era of their childhood is over, and that just sucks.