I'm swiftly learning that 4-year-olds like repetition. I suppose most young kids do, and it's nothing we haven't seen before--Cole's gone on jags with songs (Monster Mash, Thriller), books (Sesame Street Cookbook, ftw!) and even attire (that damned Iron Man costume).
Now, though, it's gone to a whole new level of crazytown. Every night he's begging Josh to read him the Halloween novelty catalog we got in the mail last week. Every day he eats one thing and one thing only for lunch: a peanut butter sandwich, hold the jelly. When he wakes, his preferred television program is one of five episodes of Scooby Doo. He's...pretty predictable.
His latest (and weirdest) obsession: The Mama/Baby Goose Game.
I can't remember how this one started, but he begs for this at least three times a day. The dialogue never changes. Ever.
--
"Mama, lay just one egg."
Me, inwardly knowing there is but one outcome, yet attempting to escape the inevitable: "No."
"Mama, just lay one egg."
"Mama goose? Just lay one egg."
I sigh, then walk over to where he's waiting, curled up on the couch, his face shining with excitement. He knows I'm going to play along.
"Move over, kiddo." I curl around him, spooning his increasingly lanky body.
"Honk."
He giggles.
"Honk, honk. I wonder when my egg is going to hatch?"
His voices changes pitch, becoming a tiny squeak as he responds from inside his imagined egg. "It's gonna hatch on 4th of July," he trills.
"I can't wait until the 4th of July! I'm excited to meet my baby goose! Honk!"
Then there is silence as we both wait. He's trembling with anticipation.
Finally, "Crack," he says. "Crack. Crack."
He wiggles his body, pretending to come out of his egg, while I exclaim over what a cute little baby goose he is. "Honk, honk," he says in his best aproximation of a baby goose voice. It is tiny and soft and very sweet.
I offer him a baby goose bottle, then the game is over.
Four is weird, yes?
[Btw, I do know that a baby goose is, in fact, called a gosling. It's just less fun that way.]
3 comments:
Is it wrong that at first I thought that this post was going to have something to do with hard drugs? ;)
I suppose hard drugs would make this game more interesting...
When I was that age (I remember b/c I was still an only child) I played a game every morning with my mom while she was doing her make-up called "baby animal." I would get under the bathroom counter and pretend to be any one of a number of baby animals at the zoo. I don't remember all the details, but it was quite intricate. Cole and I are kindred spirits!
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