Last Sunday, early afternoon. It’s warm and sunny. I’m sitting in the minivan with everyone buckled in. We’re pulling out of the driveway, on our way to saunter about Old Town Alexandria – there’s lots of grass and boats and such; great for kids (ooh, and they sell ice cream there too). We start moving through our ‘hood, headed toward the main road. From the back, Declan (he’s 2 1/2 now) says, “Aoh see Noah”. We recognize “Aoh” as “I want to”. But of course, the rest is pretty cryptic. We don’t know any Noahs.

Mami asks, “what do you want Declan?”

“Aoh see Noah”.

“Noah who?”

“Aoh see Noah, Mami”

“Ok, but where’s Noah? We don’t have Noah.”

“Aoh see Noah, Papi”

“Who is Noah, Declan? Is he a friend?”

“Noooo! Aoh see Noah plis. Plis?”

This goes on, back and forth for several minutes. Declan is getting frustrated and is starting to cry (due to lack of Noah).  Mami is getting exasperated and says “Declan, we can’t give you Noah unless you tell us what Noah is!”  After a pregnant pause, Declan says, “Sing Noah Mami”. I perk up at the clarification: “What? You sing it! Sing it to us!”

Immediately Declan sings, “Noah, Noah, Noah, Noah, don’t!”

The latin music is immediately ejected from the player and is replaced by Menagerie. We hastily press buttons until Track 2 is playing. Declan begins to giggle in the backseat and our trip to Alexandria continues as planned. Papi giggles too, but for different reasons.

Last thing – after the song is finished, he asks (and I’m not making this up) “Aont Such a Good Day Papi”

For the record, we do NOT discuss Taters or similar topics with either of the kids (not that Taters are taboo or anything, it just doesn’t come up). He’s just picked it up while listening.

Now, if we can just hang on until he’s old enough to go to shows or buy CDs…