Fatherhood Adventures

What comes out of my
2-year-old’s mouth these days continues to make me laugh like nothing else.
It has been amazing to observe my son’s speech and motor skills drastically
improve over these last couple months.

We are now communicating
with him effectively and that’s proven to be an interesting and hilarious
development for my family. These conversations are priceless because you just
never know what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it.

The pure randomness of
how his mind works cracks me up. He says whatever comes to mind, whether it
makes any sense or seems appropriate at any give time.

In one breath, he may be
telling you he wants juice, and then three seconds later he will say cracker,
then tractor then beach. If I didn’t know better, I would think he’s just
running through his vocabulary randomly and spitting out whatever words come to
mind.
Here’s some of his other favorite sayings of late:

— These days, it seems
Beckett has a lot to say about his brother Carson, who turns 7 months old
tomorrow. He refers to him as “Car Car”. For whatever reason, he often gives us
a running commentary on his younger brother’s doings. Throughout the day, he is
constantly telling us what Carson is up to, including “Car Car sneezed”, “Car
Car nigh, nigh”, “Car Car laughes”, “Car Car crying”, etc. Considering a few
short months ago Beckett wanted nothing to do with Carson and largely ignored
him, this is a welcome development.

— Since he is a master
of the colors, there are times when Beckett gets a little obsessed with
pointing out the various colors on any given day. On a recent walk around the
neighborhood, my son pointed to the sky and clouds repeatedly, saying “blue”
and “white”. Mix in a few trees (“green”) and the various house colors, and he
made sure I was aware of everything and any color he spotted around him. This
is not to mention whatever shirt he wears he must throughout the day remind you
what color it is. I personally think it’s hilarious how he says “orange.”
Somehow, he manages to get four syllables in that word.

— “Hooray” and “ta dah”
are two popular phrases he has picked up recently and uses them to cap off some
sort of feat he’s proud of, such as landing on his feet after going down a
slide. He’s quite the little performer and likes to give himself a hand.
— While out to eat recently, he turned to Pam and I, pointed to someone and
said, “Barney”. No idea how that came about, but the bulky guy was wearing a
purple shirt

— Whenever we are out
to eat at The Globe, which is a convenient walk from our house, Beckett
constantly says, “Baby Einstein”, pointing to the art hanging on the walls.
— “Banana”, it’s the first thing he says in the morning and repeats it’s often
throughout the day at odd times.
— “Pee you”, what he says when he pulls off Carson’s sock and runs around the
house.

— ‘Sghetti’ is what
Beckett will tell you he wants to eat for lunch every day if you ask him.
— “Nice dude” can be heard after he gets a snack.
— “Belly button”, pointing to his own or anyone else’s body part.

— “Toot”, it means what
you think.

— “Nacho”, what he said
yesterday while touching my big toe.

— “Nemo” is what he
says when he sees any kind of fish.

— “Nee boo-boo”,
pointing to a series of bruises on his body this week.

— “D-bops,” his
favorite show currently, referencing the Doodlebops, a bizarre show involving
adults dressed in costumes with lots of make-up singing catchy tunes and
bouncing around doing silly things.

— “Ice cream”, pointing
out Dumser’s on the Boardwalk last weekend.
— “Bye-bye beach”, as he left his favorite place last weekend.
— “More crackers”, heard all the time around our house.
— “Dada’s phone, noooo”, pointing to my phone and showing he has learned not
to play with it.
— “Mollbees”, referring to his beach friend last weekend, Molly Berman.
— “Gurt”, his favorite dessert Go-Gurt by Yoplait.
— “Dada” and “Mommy” is often heard around the house, as expected. However,
it’s interesting to me the varying tone he uses when he says them. With me, he
uses his best deep voice, while with Pam he goes with a sweet, high-pitch tone.
— “No, no dada,” what he always says when I ask him if he’s ready for bed,
even if he’s falling asleep as I am carry him to his bedroom.

When I’m not laughing at
my kid’s verbal antics, he gives me a chuckle at what he does.

For example, last
weekend while walking/running along the beach with my overly friendly son (this
is how we spend most of our beach days), he became fixated on a woman kicked
back in her beach chair at the water’s edge.

He immediately pointed
her out to me and said “mom-mom”. Despite my best efforts to assure him it was
not one of his grandmothers and that she was “nigh nigh” (sleeping in his
world), he managed to quickly escape me and sprint toward her, grabbing her sunglasses
off her head and putting them on, upside down, of course. He ran quickly away,
tossing the sunglasses aside once he found a man nearby with a hat on. As I
returned the sunglasses to the woman, who was still asleep, I watched Beckett
approach a man, a stranger to him, and say, “pop pop”.

About The Author: Steven Green

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The writer has been with The Dispatch in various capacities since 1995, including serving as editor and publisher since 2004. His previous titles were managing editor, staff writer, sports editor, sales account manager and copy editor. Growing up in Salisbury before moving to Berlin, Green graduated from Worcester Preparatory School in 1993 and graduated from Loyola University Baltimore in 1997 with degrees in Communications (journalism concentration) and Political Science.