dinosaur

I'm listing "dinosaur" as Benjamin's 131st word, but he's actually been saying it for almost a week. He only says it at night, however, when requesting his favorite bedtime book, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?

Our bedtime routine includes going from room to room to turn out each light, and before we even get to our bedroom, where we read and sing to him before carrying him into his bedroom, he starts saying "die-show! die-show!" (which is the closest I can come to representing how he pronounces dinosaur.) The reason he does this is that we used to lay out 3 books for him to choose from, not including the dinosaur book, which we read him every Sunday night as a special treat and a way to mark the week. Then he started rejecting all his nightly book options and requesting "papa! papa! papa!" which we eventually figured out was his name for the book that opens, "How does a dinosaur say goodnight when papa comes in to turn out the light?"

Once we understood what he was asking for, we'd say, "Oh, you mean dinosaurs?" So now he knows to request the book with that new word.

Every nap time, he wants his mother to read him "boom boom" (which I'll let her describe), and every night, he wants me to read him die-show. In fact, he wants me to read it to him twice. I speed-read it the second time, which he finds funny.

- papa

"Does he mope, does he moan, does he sulk, does he sigh?"