Enlightenment

Do you remember a picture from a week or so ago where Patrick and Dinosaur were both wearing socks--on their feet AND their hands? It was hilarious, obviously, but puzzling. I had no idea why he suddenly decided socks belonged on his hands.

A few days ago he came up to me with a sock in his hand again, asking for help to put it on his hand. He was chattering about something incomprehensible when I heard two words I thought I understood: "sah puppih."

"Huh? Did you say 'sock puppet,' Patrick?"

"Sah puppih! Yeah!"

And from that moment, Sock Puppet joined our family. It's definitely something he picked up from Blue's Clues, as Steve shows off his own sock puppet skills in several different episodes we've seen lately. Now Sock Puppet joins us on car trips and sometimes eats at the table with us, although we've learned to limit his appearances then to cleaner meals ever since the day he tried banana. "Yucky banana! Yucky sah puppit!" Sock Puppet even talks on the phone sometimes, although I'm not entirely sure what he's saying. But that's okay because I'm sure Patrick knows.

Another unrelated Patrick-ism: He's decided that Cookie Monster is every bit as cool as Elmo and is thrilled if either one of them makes an appearance on his diaper. It cracks me up to hear him say "Cookie Monster," though, because he insists on growling it just like Cookie Monster talks.

We recently had to start replacing his wardrobe because he takes any buttons or snaps on his clothes and draws on the walls with them (they leave pencil-like marks that are difficult to remove). Those kinds of clothes are almost all he has, so we now need to find simple t-shirts and shorts without all those extra buttons. While browsing the clearance section at Babies R Us last night, we found a Cookie Monster outfit. Normally I avoid the popular cartoon characters on his clothes, but I couldn't resist buying it when he saw it and immediately got excited, growling "Cookie Monster" loudly. He's wearing the outfit today, and that's all he can talk about. I'll have to see if I can get it on video for you. It's got to be one of the cutest things he says.