Monkey See, Monkey Do

Simon is getting to be so funny.

A few days ago, he was playing on the floor with his Daddy. Simon noticed that the cover for the x-box (which is serving as our DVD player right now) was open, and he headed over to push the buttons. Daddy closed the cover and sat back down... and Simon kept picking at the cover.

"No, no, Simon," said Daddy. "That's Daddy's. Ta Ta!" We say "ta ta" when we ask Simon to give us something. Simon looked at Daddy... and went back to what he was doing. "Ta Ta, Simon. Ta Ta!"

Now, we all know that Daddy probably should have gone and taken Simon away from the x-box, but I guess he thought he could reason with Simon in the language of "Ta ta". In any case, it didn't work. Simon turned to Daddy with a big smile on his face, said "ta ta," and went back to what he was doing. The two repeated this exchange several times. "Ta Ta, Simon." "ta ta!" "No, Simon... Ta Ta!" "ta ta!"

I probably shouldn't have laughed, but it was too funny. I couldn't help it.

It looks like Simon is getting into the "monkey see, monkey do" stage- in fact, his newest nickname is "Monkey C. Monkeydoo". He's learning lots that way; clapping his hands, banging toys together to make noise... lots of fun stuff!

I think the copying might be leaving him open to the dangers of peer pressure, though. I've been looking after Raya for the last few days; she's a few weeks older than him, and she walks around (though she looks too small to be walking- it's too cute). She came in this morning, as she did yesterday, with her pacifier (soother, dumb-tit, whatever) in her mouth. Simon went right for it. After he pulled it out of her mouth a few times, I dug out one of his old ones from a basket in the kitchen, and he popped it in his mouth. Oy vey... I hope he grows out of this before the "cool" (or stupid) kids are smoking...