Guppy's First Two-Word Phrase in Public

I've told this story to a few people with whom I felt I could share it without feeling too much embarrassment.  It didn't work out so well for me, but my mom loves it, so I figured I'd share it here.

Guppy is now talking up a storm of fragmented two or three word phrases which is awesome, but a couple months ago (at about 21 months old) two word phrases beyond "bye...  maMA" were fairly unheard of.  He also wasn't much for speaking in a public setting, like stores, until he was very comfortable.

During that time, Guppy and Lim and I went to Barnes & Noble.  A place where he is oddly comfortable.  I think it's the stuffed animals they sell there as well as the shelves of books.  Not necessarily a bad thing.  Lim and I love books and want him to as well.  So far so good.

Lim was in the kids section looking for books for Guppy and he decided it was a perfect time to take a jaunt all the way to the other side of the large book store.  My job at that point is to follow him and make sure that he doesn't destroy anything on the way.  We got as far away from Lim as we could without leaving the store and Guppy started trying to pull books off the shelf, and I tried to put them back before any damage was done.

I had some...  digestive issues that day and so I let out some gas and it ended up being just barely audible.  I don't know why gas is embarrassing or funny as it's a part of human nature -- truth be told, I giggle a lot at gaseous outburts.  But only when it's appropriate to do so.  Guppy hasn't learned the social norms surrounding this yet, so instantly pointed to my crotch and said very audibly, "Dada poop!"  I was fairly certain that the whole store had heard him, so I said at about the same volume, "That's right!  Lots of books!"

And then booked it (ha!) back to the kids section to see if we could leave.

Noises

Last week I was with some friends who do not have kids (the majority of my friends currently fall into this category). They asked if Guppy was making noises yet (at 17 months). What they were really asking was if he made "vroom" noises or any other make believe noises. So I thought about it and let them know.

A few weeks ago I was out of town and Lim was giving Guppy a bath. He has two boats, one with a hook on it, and one with a place to put a hook. She took the hook from the first, hooked it onto the second, and made some "vroom" noises. From then on Guppy will grab the boats, hook them together, and make a fairly high-pitched sound while pulling them around in circles. Of course, those sounds sound nothing like a "vroom" sound, but that's not very surprising since he can't talk yet. It is incredibly cute though.

He is also an expert at making a buzzing noise with his lips. As a trombone player, I very much encourage this. How did he learn that? I was trying to make him figure out how to blow bubbles in the bathtub. He couldn't figure out what I was doing to make them because blowing air out of my mouth doesn't really make a noise. Best solution is of course to make a buzzing noise. After about 3 days of demonstration, he got it! He's going to be an absolute pro come swim "lessons" this summer.

When it comes to lip buzzing, the next logical step was for me to play the trombone for him. This is the third time in his short life that I've played the trombone for him. The first time (at about 5 months), he was scared and cried. The second time at about a year, he smiled and crawled away happily. This time? He loved it! Not only that, he wanted to put his mouth where my mouth goes, which he made clear by putting his hand out towards it and making a pincer motion (it's amazing what can be communicated with that motion).

I would make a buzzing noise with my lips and then bring the trombone up and play something. He would look at the mouthpiece in the horn and make a buzzing noise with his lips. So I took out the mouthpiece and showed him a couple more times how I buzzed my lips and held it up to my mouth to make a sound. He kept making his pincer motion, so I started to bring the mouthpiece to his lips, part of me hoping very much that he would make a good noise on his first try and be a trombonist like his papa. It got within an inch of his mouth as he was buzzing his lips and just as he was about to buzz into it... he stuck out his tongue and licked the mouthpiece. So I guess we're still working on that... Damn.