I’ve had the pleasure of “having to” lay down with Zachary at night in order to keep him in bed to fall asleep. He falls asleep quickly (usually about 5-7 minutes), yet the time before him finally nodding off has been full of fun conversations with this energetic three-year old. For much of the past year one of the thoughts he has been in need of expressing has been his dislike for the ride at the Park at the Mall of America called the Frog Hopper. “Dad?”, he would always start the conversation, “I don’t like the Frog Hopper”. And we would talk about the experience.
He’s moved on in conversation from his lament of that ride, and our talks are much more random. Last night we were discussing friends. At one point in the conversation I was listing friends of our family, and one name he was unsure of. So I explained the members of that family, and mentioned the last child, to which he responded, “Oh yeah. The baby.” I went on to explain that he is no longer a baby, and that he is walking around like Naomi. Not long after, he asked if I was ever a baby. I said that I was… about 42 years ago. His response was immediate, shocked, and emphatic, “Holy Monkey!”