Noogie and Sally C Cups
Posted: September 22nd, 2009 | Author: Dave | Filed under: Toddlers | Tags: babies, children, daddy blog, Fatherhood, kids, parenthood, parenting, Toddlers | No Comments »The following is a throwback post from my days blogging for Parenting Magazine, re-published here for posterity’s sake. And because it’s funny.
The kids have invented a game called The Door Game. It goes like this:
Grace goes into her bedroom and closes the door while William stands in the hall on the opposite side. Then Grace throws the door open. William laughs hysterically and then pulls it shut, which causes Gracie to laugh hysterically. She then throws the door open again just as William runs out of the way.
The game usually ends with purple fingers and/or tender feet that have been bashed by the door. Despite these deterrents, as well as my own stern-voiced requests to end The Door Game once and for all, they continue to play.
Hanging from the doorknob is a pitiful rabbit holding what is essentially an arch of piano wire over its head like a mafia hitman. Since William can’t reach the doorknob, he uses the rabbit to shut the door. Being a highly intelligent problem-solver, I deduced that removing the rabbit would end The Door Game.
I slipped it off of the doorknob.
“No,” Grace said. “That’s Noogie’s rabbit!”
“What?” I said.
“That rabbit belongs to Noogie, not you! You put it back!” She was yelling and angry. “He’s right there and put his rabbit back.”
“Right where?” I said.
“There,” she said, pointing to the toddler-sized chenille easy chair in her room. The empty toddler-sized chenille easy chair.
Uh-oh.
“Is he there now?” I said.
“Well he’s not there right now,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, and left to find my wife.
“Are you aware of ‘Noogie?’” I said.
“What’s Noogie?”
“I think Grace has an imaginary friend.”
“Oh?”
I relayed the story, including the part about my impressive problem-solving skills, and asked if I should locate a child psychologist right then, or wait until morning. My wife, who is the rational one (and who has a master’s degree in early childhood education), assured me that it’s normal for 3-year-olds to have imaginary friends.
“But why ‘Noogie’?” I said. “I mean, it’s such a ridiculous word … ‘Noogie.’ What does that even mean? How’d she come up with that?”
“Who knows,” she said. “Kids like to make words up.”
Well that’s true. When my sister and I were very young, we spent our afternoons tormenting our mother while dad worked. She tried to keep us “on task” as often as possible, having us “help” with the dishes, color, use Play-Doh or make crafts like paper bag hand puppets, which we used to put on little shows. We even had recurring characters, including the infamous Sally See Comps.
I don’t remember who came up with the name but, like Grace, we were young enough to enjoy nonsensical words. My sister and I would make our own ornately decorated Sally See Comps puppets to be featured in our shows. For some reason, my mother hated Sally and demanded that we either change her name or stop making her altogether. This only ramped up Sally’s Awesomeness Level, and most of her shows revolved around the loud repetition of her name.
Years later we learned that mom thought we were saying “Sally C Cups.” I wish I could lay claim to such wit as a 6-year-old, but I’m afraid I can’t. To this day, I still snicker whenever I see a paper bag.
Maybe “Noogie” isn’t so bad.
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