The Bronx Cheer
So I reported a while ago that Sam had taken up Shouting as his preferred method of communication.

Well, apparently he's working his way through the entire human Phoneme library, because now he is on to what What to Expect in the First Year euphemistically refers to as "...a wet, razzing sound."

Yes, Sam has mastered the Bronx Cheer.

He has not, however, mastered timing. So he does it all the time. Kind of like he was with shouting.

He'll be lying down, minding his own business, hosing down his stuffed elephant, his big triangle 'developmental toy' (you know, the ones that are supposed to make kids smarter, but probably contain tons of Bisphenol A), or the cat.

So you pick him up, and he continues his little trombone recital on your shirt, or if you're mommy, into your hair.

Speaking of spraying mommy, the most inopportune moment came the other night when Noelle placed a fairly large serving of the very popular brown rice pablum into his mouth - which he responded to with a noise of joy and happiness. Which sounded alot like "PBBBLLLPPBPBLT!"

Result? 'Pablum on shirt'. 'Pablum on face'. 'Pablum on Glasses'. And 'Dad who should have been on Oxygen' he was laughing so hard. We managed to avoid 'Dad on couch for the night' as it was so funny, Noelle had to laugh too.

Isaac, on the other hand, is mastering increasingly complex phonemes.

The other day in the car, Isaac was in the back seat, but really he was in his own little world. "And then I'll get in the ambulance, and I'll go and rescue Diego, because he's stuck in the mud. And I'll help the sick and injured people because I'm an emergency medical technician."

I didnt' know what to say. He learned the terms from a Tonka book about various emergency and construction vehicles he has, but I didn't think it would stick. Or at least if it did, he would go with EMT, rather than Emergency Medical Technician. Oh well.

Finally, my favorite trick right now is to ask Isaac, "Are you a silly monkey?" At which point he will look coyly to one side and reply "No, I'm a funky monkey."

I couldn't have said it better myself.