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My Son’s Secret Code Word For Me: A Donkey Sound

April 22, 2012 at 10:28 pm , by 

17 months.

After 90 minutes of napping together in a rocking chair in an upstairs bedroom at our friends Jamie and Peter’s house yesterday, my son Jack woke up slightly sweaty, drying himself off on my luxurious Italian arm hair.

He was disorientated. I could see him trying to figure it all out:

Why was he in a little girls’ bedroom? Why did he fall asleep in his Daddy’s arms as opposed to a crib? Was he still in a dream, like in the movie Inception?

Finally he looked up at me with curious eyes and plainly announced our mutual code word…

“Bah-bah.”

Then I said it back to him.

As explained in Stuff My 15 Month Old Says: Current Top 7, “bah-bah” is Jack’s way of making a donkey sound.

It’s recognized as the donkey sound only because of the almost sad, dropping tone Jack uses to imitate a donkey; not because of the word “bah-bah” itself, which doesn’t actually sound like a donkey.

By speaking our mutual, exclusive code word, it was as if to say:

“Okay, Dad. I don’t know how we got in this weird place. But you’re here too, so I’m sure you can find a way to get us out of here. Right?”

I led him downstairs to the living room where he remembered the school bus slide he was playing on earlier, before he got hit by the tranquilizer dart… metaphorically speaking.

He was safe and back to having fun. But he wouldn’t have left that room upstairs if it weren’t for us assuring each other with our code word.

How did “bah-bah” (with a dropping inflection) become our secret word?

Jack is in his car seat in my car for at least an hour every weekday. Sometimes when I haven’t heard a peep out of him in over 10 minutes, I check on him by using our code word.

He always answers back with it.

Then after that became normal for us (go ahead, give yourself a second or two to take that in) I started saying the code word when I pick him up from daycare every day.

It’s not, “Hey Jack, I’m here! I missed you son!”

It’s “bah-bah.”

Personally, I think having a donkey sound for a secret code word is pretty original. Especially for the fact that it’s taking the tone of one animal sound and masking it with the phonetic sound of another.

That would be like mooing a monkey sound; if that’s even possible.

Now Jack and I need a secret handshake.

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My Son Provides Comic Relief From Real Life Blues

April 20, 2012 at 12:07 am , by 

31 years for me; 17 months for him.

Having a kid will make your life stressful; that’s for sure. But a child also brings a certain joy and humor you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.

Oh, hi. My name is Nick Shell and today is my birthday. I am now 31.

“Happy Birthday; may it be your best ever!” you might proclaim. And I would thank you.

But you see, April 20th is more than just a special day for pot heads to celebrate.

It’s more than just the day that Kony 2012 would have made its big reveal in the streets had society not outed the now infamous video as illegitimate.

My birthday is sort of like the cursed numbers are for Hurley in Lost. Bad things happen in the world on April 20th. Like on my 18th birthday:

Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.

Though it 3 years before I was born, in 1978,  Korean Air Flight 902 was shot down by the Soviet Union.

In 2007,  there was the Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricaded himself in NASA‘s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.

Two years ago this day in 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing twelve workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.

And though it was the day before my 14th birthday, in 1995, was the Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was bombed, killing 168.

Oh yeah, and guess who I share a birthday with: Adolf Hitler, born in 1889. Seriously.

(Also, Joey Lawrence; but I guess that’s not a bad thing.)

This is the day of the year that you should hold your breath as you check the news. If we can make it through this day without some kind of massacre, I’ll be amazed. In fact, by writing all this, I’m actively trying to jinx the “420 curse.”

So why did God choose such a dark day of the year for a an arguably normal and mild-mannered guy like me to be born? All I can say is that it’s comic relief to the world. It somehow provides balance in the universe.

And as I think about this concept of comic relief I can’t help but think of my son during the past 365 days in which I was a 30 year-old man.

Never has my life been more challenging, stressful, humiliating, exhausting, maturity-enforcing and unpredictable since he was born. It hasn’t all been easy.

During my year of being 30, in addition to the culture shock of learning by immersion what to do with an infant, I was unemployed for the first part of it, then I got a job, and I also got this gig writing for Parents.com writing The Dadabase, then had to move my family back to Nashville because of financial reasons, my wife’s car broke down half-way during the move and we had to buy a new car, and our roof caved in the week we tried to move back in our house in Nashville.

We eventually got back on our feet here in Nashville. Then we became vegetarians. And not that long ago, Jack had a febrile seizure.

Um… what else? I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

It hasn’t been a forgettable year; clearly not.

I’m ready for 31. I’ll just say that.

But back to my son serving as comic relief in my life. It’s the little stuff  that gets me; in a good way.

Like when I watch him chew viciously on his toy plastic vegetables though he knows they’re just for pretending to eat.

And how he likes to sit in the fridge after he mows the carpet each day.

How sometimes on the drive home in the car, he’ll start randomly making donkey sounds after 20 minutes of silence.

My kid makes me laugh; even during some days or weeks or months I wish I could just fast forward through.

Here’s to hoping the world doesn’t end today. [Insert laugh tracks here.]

My current favorite song, as it relates to all this:

 

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The Dynamics of Jack And His Cousin Calla

April 15, 2012 at 10:32 pm , by 

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Helmets For Crawlers And Toddlers (And First-Time Parents)

April 14, 2012 at 10:02 pm , by 

16 months.

What the helmet?!

When I saw the MSN headline this week saying “Does your high-speed crawler need a helmet?” I couldn’t help but laugh and feel sorry for all those naive first-time parents out there taking that idea seriously. Then I remembered:

Exactly a year ago, my wife and I actually searched online for one. Oh yeah… that.

I was, and still am, an unexperienced first-time parent in each new stage of my son’s life. Yeah, it goes back to that stereotype about the firstborn child being overprotected.

Needless to say, we ended up not paying the 43 bucks for a “crawling helmet,” but only because back in April 2011, it wasn’t as easy to find such a thing. But now, it’s quite the trend.

There is a demand. There is a supply.

Yes, the “crawling helmet” is smart, sexy, and most importantly, a magnet for hipster toddlers everywhere in America; especially Portland, Oregon… I assume.

As much as I mock the concept now, I honestly believed last year that it was a good idea to buy my 5 month-old a helmet to prevent him from everyday head-bumping injuries.

After all, the house we lived in at the time had hardwood floors. But mainly, we as newbie parents hadn’t yet learned that babies’ heads are durable enough to take quite the banging.

It didn’t take long to realize that 99.3% of the time, when Jack hits his head on the floor, or the table, or the wall, he’s not even clued in to what happened.

In fact, one of my new games I play with Jack is to see how many times I can repeatedly hit him in the head (while he’s looking the other way playing with another toy) with this cheap, thin, extremely light, made-in-China inflatable ball you find in the dollar bin at Wal-Mart.

(Pictured right.)

After about 5 or 6 direct hits to the back or side of the head, he finally looks over at me and chuckles as if to say, “Oh, you’ve been doing that this whole time?”

Sure, my son is hard-headed; but that’s not unusual for young kids.

I wonder now what would have happened had we bought him a helmet last year; had there really been a fresh market for it back then.

Well, I guess ultimately, we wouldn’t have learned a very valuable lesson; that “high-speed crawlers” don’t actually need helmets.

Something else I wonder is if there an official way to get your kid tested to find out if they truly are a high-speed crawler. I predict there will be plenty of poser babies out there who are really just medium-speed crawlers…

Even worse, for all I know, “crawling helmets” are probably the gateway protection device leading to “steel-toed booties” and  ”baby bulletproof vests.”

If only crawling helmets were pitched on the TV show Shark Tank. I would love to see that episode:

“As a toddler, I jumped off the couch onto the hardwood floor headfirst and not only did I not bleed, but I turned out smart enough to make it here. So for that reason, I’m out.”

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My Toddler Has Moves Like Jagger… And Frankenstein!

February 29, 2012 at 8:43 pm , by 

15 months.

Whenever Jack hears any kind of music, he just starts dancing. I realize, though, I may be using the word “dancing” pretty loosely.

Sure, he’s got moves like Jagger… but mixed with a little bit of Stevie Wonder’s signature head swing from side to side and while awkwardly putting his arms straight out like Frankenstein.

It can be Phil Collins’ soft rock, Bon Jovi’s hard rock, Jason Aldean’s country rock, or simply a cheesy jingle on the radio: No matter what kind of song it is, Jack believes it deserves the same dance moves.

In other words, my son has soul but he ain’t got no rhythm.

He’s pretty much obsessed with dancing right now. He has this zebra scooter which he refuses to ride until I hit the music button on it.

Similarly, he won’t begin eating his breakfast or dinner until my wife turns on the radio on top of the fridge.

Jack will point up to the stereo, waiting until he hears a melody before touching the food on the tray of his high chair.

This morning as I was helping my wife get him dressed, he was being pretty cranky for no good reason. I tried distracting him by making stupid faces and weird jungle sounds, but it was to no avail.

So my wife and I decided to sing an unrehearsed duet for him: The Alphabet Song.

By the letter F, he was laughing and working on his dance moves.

And while he doesn’t even care about watching TV in the first place, perhaps for our own entertainment, my wife and I like to turn on The Backyardigans (via Netflix streaming through our Wii) just to watch him get all excited and Jagger around to the surprisingly un-catchy, yet unforgettable, theme song.

My son is definitely a dancing machine. Here again, I’m using the word “dancing” pretty loosely.

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