a monkey on his back

Benjamin's new word tonight seems to be "Maggie" — said over and over on tonight's family walk. We couldn't figure out what he was saying. He's only met Nathalie's friend Maggie a few times, and it's been a while.

When we got home, Nathalie gave him the plush monkey toy she got at the San Diego Zoo a few years back. "Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!"

So apparently "Maggie" is "monkey" … but a mystery remained. I haven't been saying that word around him very much and Nathalie has only been saying it in French: singe.

So I phoned Kayla, Benjamin's babysitter. Mystery solved. They were playing with the San Diego monkey on Thursday evening — maman and papa's "date night." Kayla was strapping the monkey to Benjamin's back, using its long limbs as straps. Benjamin thought this was great fun, and it obviously made an impression, since he was trying to talk to us about it two nights later.

With some feedback from us, Benjamin is now saying something much closer to "monkey" than "Maggie" …

- papa

PS Before adding "monkey" to the list of Benjamin's current words, half were French and half were English. Perfect bilingualism.

I get this by first subtracting appellations — mama, papa, buh — and counting ball/balle and box/boite as one of each. That leaves

bye-bye bath hat hi dance

marcher porte boire fromage par terre

PPS His mother now tells me that he's also said banane (banana) in French. So we're still tied:

monkey

banane

What an appropriate pair.