All We Like Sheep (Have Gone Astray)
Dec. 23rd, 2008 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_pretentiousFor a few months now, whenever I've needed to amuse Gareth and haven't had a lot to work with, I've been able to make him laugh by saying, "Bah!" interspersed with "Babababababah!" A few goofy facial expressions, a little vocal modulation, and I can usually prevent a meltdown in the checkout line at the grocery store.
I'd been thinking of this syllable as just a signal that we were playing, but Gareth, with his avid pattern recognition efforts, put together that it was the same syllable that the sheep say in the Old MacDonald song, and the same syllable the sheep say in his This Little Chick book. At some point, the Bah game shifted in Gareth's mind from a game of utterances and facial expressions to a game of imitating sheep.
I realized this change had taken place when we dropped by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catpaw67's shop. As we approached the toy section, Gareth caught sight of a lamb pull toy, and he immediately started baaing at it. Of course, I was too charmed to leave without the pull toy--Happy Yule, kiddo. That night at home, I realized he'd been baaing along with one of his electronic toys that sings "Old MacDonald." And when we went to jeneralist's house for our Yule vigil, she brought out various toys to amuse the three kids in our party. Gareth greeted the sheep hand puppets with more vigorous baaing.
Last night, Dan and I put the boy to bed and listened with half an ear to the baby monitor. It was so quiet we thought Gareth had gone to sleep, until we noticed he was quietly baaing to himself.
I'd been thinking of this syllable as just a signal that we were playing, but Gareth, with his avid pattern recognition efforts, put together that it was the same syllable that the sheep say in the Old MacDonald song, and the same syllable the sheep say in his This Little Chick book. At some point, the Bah game shifted in Gareth's mind from a game of utterances and facial expressions to a game of imitating sheep.
I realized this change had taken place when we dropped by
catpaw67's shop. As we approached the toy section, Gareth caught sight of a lamb pull toy, and he immediately started baaing at it. Of course, I was too charmed to leave without the pull toy--Happy Yule, kiddo. That night at home, I realized he'd been baaing along with one of his electronic toys that sings "Old MacDonald." And when we went to jeneralist's house for our Yule vigil, she brought out various toys to amuse the three kids in our party. Gareth greeted the sheep hand puppets with more vigorous baaing.Last night, Dan and I put the boy to bed and listened with half an ear to the baby monitor. It was so quiet we thought Gareth had gone to sleep, until we noticed he was quietly baaing to himself.
