My son is a talker. We used to think that he was kinda verbal. Now, we know that he is way past that. He has developed a nasty case of diarrhea of the mouth. (Sadly it is accompanied by, as my junior high science teacher used to say, constipation of the brain.)
Malcolm talks about poop. He talks about school. He talks about his “aminals.” And when he is done talking you about everything that he has to talk about, he talks to his aminals. Then he finds someone else to talk to. If he can’t find anyone else, he comes back to you and will try to talk to you about all the same stuff he has already talked to you about. The cycle then repeats, ad nauseum.
I used to think that I talked to Malcolm to pass the time away during the day. Now, I know that quite the opposite is true. He talks to me. I am not sure exactly where it comes from, but he loves hearing the sound of his own voice. Malcolm has lots of questions for the firefighters at birthday parties. He spends time at baseball practice telling his coach that his shoes are fast. He recently talked to my parents for 25 minutes on the phone telling them which of his aminals are mean and which are nice. Luckily, grandparents are insane enough and have enough free time to stay on the line that long.
So it all came down to this. We just spend a few days with our friends at the Russian River. We kayaked down the river one of the days, and after the long and tiring day we tried to unwind back at the house in the hot tub. Everyone had their head back, eyes closed, and nobody spoke. Then Malcolm got there. “Daddy, why are the dogs going poop?” he asked. He continued, “Daddy why do the dogs have so many legs? Why does the brown one’s tail not move? I think the brown one looks like cinnamon. Are there monsters in the trees? The night before this one, was there any monsters, then?” I told Malcolm that we were tired and wanted to relax, and asked him to be quiet. He paid no attention to that, and said that he wanted to play the train game. He was going to be blue again, because he likes blue, which is the color of his dog. I had to ask him again to be quiet and told him that if he wasn’t able to be quiet, he was going to have to get out of the hot tub. For a while, he whispered his string of unrelated nonsensical comments, but then when he didn’t get the response he was looking for, he continued ahead, full steam. “The day after next, I want to go to the river, and throw rocks for the dogs. I want to go in the boat, and look at the weeds. When is mommy coming? Is she at work? Why does she have the green car and we have the blue car. My dog is blue.” At this point we couldn’t stop laughing because it became apparent that Malcolm just couldn’t shut the fuck up. When we finally could take no more, I took Malcolm out of the hot tub. Not the worst problem you could draw up for a kid, but exhausting nonetheless.
Tags: Malcolm says funny things
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