Nuggle

The phases around here go so fast I can hardly keep up.  There were the days of Nate clearing his throat.  Then the two weeks of stuttering, “wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-where Jakey go?”  I resisted googling childhood stuttering for as long as I could.  Luckily it’s passed.  One day I noticed that “Nake” was gone.  Nake!  I asked Jake and he told me Nate and Nake are both his nicknames.  But really, he only says Nate these days.  Truly the end of an era.

And then, there was the missing ‘s’.  I first noticed it when Nathaniel kept repeating, “I too cary, Mama.  I too cary.”  Then interchanging it with “I’m too cared.  Nuggle Mama, nuggle.”

And then I noticed:

“Mell my toesies, they’re tinky.”

“I’m trong!”

“I want a nack.”

“My hands are so ticky.”

“Mmm, trawberries.”

“Daddy, why they’re piders in your nose?  Piders.”  (Not to worry.  False alarm.)

“My bed too pooky for me.  Too pooky.”

“Come here Cruffy.  Come here.”

“I wanna ticker.”

“I mash it.  Mash the fly.”

And in one disturbing incident when I was home alone at night with the boys: “Oooh, a troller outside.  A troller.”  Fortunately, it was just our stroller on the porch.

Last week I noticed that he’s picked the ‘s’ back up in most of his words.  Of course ‘Superman’ was never affected.  But, I’ll never forget the night he was sitting on the changing table and he knocked the toy lizard off onto the floor.

“Where’d the nake go?  Where the nake?”

Like I said… the end of an era.