The Jr. VP likes to play a game where he stands on a chair next to me in the HQ’s kitchen and looks at the laptop computer. He then will say a word and Daddy has to find a picture of whatever Jr. says (thanks Google image search!). It started out pretty easy: “kitty!”, “puppy!”, “train!”, that kind of thing. Lately it is getting a lot harder as his demands get more and more specific. I went one for two last night on “Mr. Burns!” and “Teacher Kim!” (the instructor at Little Gym). I hope Teacher Kim believes me when I explain why I am taking her picture next week.
He also likes looking at all the pictures stored on my laptop, especially pictures of the Jr. VP. He recognizes himself from about age 1 onward, but a picture of the CFO holding him as a newborn is identified as “Mommy! Baby!” He also loves pictures of all the various beach trips and will shout out the name of anyone he sees, and he’ll also point and scream “Sand!” and “Aqua!” as appropriate. The most fun picture to show him though is one from Halloween a while back: The CEO dressed as Santa Claus standing next to the Chiefs Photographer and Educator. The boy looks at that picture and is absolutely befuddled.
All the exclamation marks in the above paragraphs are intended to get across the fact that despite his Mommy’s best efforts, Stinkboy has no indoor voice. He yells when he talks, and often screams just for fun. He’ll also yell in his monster voice (a cross between Cookie Monster and Lemmy from Motörhead), sometimes even speaking the Monster language. This ticks off Mommy since it means I have to translate for her as she doesn’t speak a word of Monster. Even translating is often difficult because English and Monster are designed for different things; many concepts that are easy to express in one are almost totally lacking in the other. For example the closest you can get to “I love you” in Monster is literally translated as “I’ll eat you last!”. “Give Mommy a hug” becomes “Capture the woman!” . “Watch out Mommy” becomes “Attack!” — you get the gist. Monster is a not a language capable of any great subtlety, and it’s not at all suitable for prose or poetry, but on occasion it is just perfect for it’s task: being a little Monster. And it’s fun to speak in front of Mommy.
