The Dingle-Dangle

We had a name picked out for our baby a long way in advance.

The baby was out in the world for all of twenty minutes before I started calling him other things. He was blowing spit bubbles out of his mouth so he became "Bubble Bear." Which led to names like "Bubbles" and "Little Bear."

A few weeks later, Bubble Bear gave way to "Doodles." Doodles was transformed into "The Doodle," "Doot-Doot," and "Doodle-ooo," and "Doodle Bear."

More recently, I found myself laughing at something he was doing and I told him he was "The Dingle-Dangle."

When I sing him songs consisting of these various names, he smiles and laughs as if he's already aware of what an idiot his father is.

He's been working on talking for about six weeks now, and he can pull off a pretty good, "Hi." If you say, "Hi!" to him a few times he'll say it back. Sometimes, he'll see you and smile and then say it on his own.

Yesterday, I had him sitting on the couch next to me since he had been drinking a bottle and fell asleep. When he woke up about an hour later, he was working on some bubbles, as ususal, and he did something new. I can't be sure which one he said, since he's only 13 weeks old and he's got a brand new mouth with no teeth, but what I heard was, "Doot-Doot." The "D" was dragged out and bubbly, and he might have been saying, "Doodle," but either way, he surprised the shit out of me.

For the next hour or so we sat on the couch telling each other, "Hi, Doodle," and "Hi, Doot-Doot."