All of the baby books and websites say that, since Punky is 14.5 months, he should be imitating us.

Unfortunately for me, this is true.  Check the box, Punkie does that now.

I had NO IDEA that I had so many verbal tics.  And, having my kid point them all out is kind of horrifying . . . and, if I pretend I don’t care about the knowledge that I sound kind of like an idiot, maybe a little funny.

The newest one was revealed to me yesterday.  Punkie has a drawer and a few cabinets in the kitchen that he’s allowed to ransack.  They contain things like plastic spatulas, placemats, potholders – things that won’t hurt him.

It was early, like 5AM, and Punky and I were alone in the kitchen.  I was washing his bottle while he ransacked his drawer for the 500th time.  Suddenly, a plastic spatula was tossed into the kitchen sink from behind (like a softball pitch), and a little voice behind me said “cool!”.  I turned around to see the back of the footie-pajamaed kid as he exited stage right.  He was moving fast – he basically had a puff of cartoon smoke behind him as he sped away.

I thought to myself, “huh, Self, where did he learn that? Must have been daycare.”

And then, all day, I heard my own voice utter “cool”.  Continuously.  All day.  Cool.  Cool.  Cool.  WTF is wrong with me?  Who says that all day?  Apparently, this idiot does.