My toddler at 19 months has a large vocabulary for someone his age. I know, all parents say that. But he really does know a lot of words, and is able to identify scores of animals. Except one. He dutifully goes page by page in the picture book, enthusiastically calling out duck, cow, sheep, lion. When he gets to this page with the picture of a chimp, he says Daddy.
That’s not Daddy, I say, it’s a monkey. And he says oo oo, ee ee, imitating a monkey. My wife thinks this is hysterical. She probably taught him to do it. But I don’t mind, that’s part of being a daddy; being the butt of jokes, submitting to all sorts of humiliation, anything to get a smile and hear your toddler say Daddy.
