Monkey House

I did a few things poorly as a dad today. The monkey didn’t have his afternoon nap, and yet wasn’t making it through the afternoon with any sort of grace and “withitness”. A few weekends ago he missed both Saturday and Sunday (by design) and didn’t seem to miss the naps all that much.

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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.

When it’s play-time, uur little monkey always has more fun when sharing the activity with someone else, whether that’s someone his own age or just anybody who happens to be around. A very common phrase of his: “You play wif me here” which very quickly becomes “You play wif me… pleeeeeease?” when he sees our reaction to his bossiness. Or tonight, even with ice-cream waiting for him (he is NUTS for ice-cream like any kid) he says to his mother, “Play wif me! Please, please, please, please!” (That many pleases in a row was a first!)

However, he can also play on his own. If I reply with “Sorry, daddy is busy,” he usually plays by himself for a little while. But that’s not really the point of this post. The point of this post is to write about two recent incidents in which he literally entertained himself.

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I wonder if we have a little jock (or ninja) in waiting here.

A few nights ago, we’re having dinner outside, and Cole is using the adult deck chairs (as he always does). A bit fidgety and restless, he pulls himself up to standing at the table, which is kinda in that “he’s going to hurt himself” zone. Mama says, “Can you please sit on your bum?”

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