The Goofer -- and his goofy vocabulary

Oftentimes, while in public, I find myself calling Joseph by his nickname: Moseph. "How's it going, Mose?" or "C'mon, Mose" just pops out of my mouth before I even think what I'm saying. Then embarrassment ensues. Dan gives me a look or says, "You just called him Mose." I can't help it though. We call him that all the time at home, so it just naturally comes out everywhere. Thankfully, I haven't yet had anyone ask me, "So, his name is Mose?"

Another pet name we have for Joseph is The Goofer. He's a goof-ball! Anyone who's met him can attest to that -- and I blame his father, who is also a goof-ball. At some point, Dan simply dubbed him The Goofer. We regularly tell him, "You're The Goofer." Let me give you some recent examples...

Joseph likes to tell jokes. (Or maybe he just likes the attention he gets when he tells a joke). They always go something like this (word for word):

Joseph: "A gobby gobby go."

Us: *fake or real laugh* "A gobby gobby go."

Joseph: *laugh*

He appreciates a good joke too, as you can see, and somehow this particular joke never gets old. He tried it first on his cousin Catherine a couple months back and when she thought he was hilarious and dubbed him "gobby go"  he got the idea he was a great comedian. The joke is especially effective when he tilts his big head over to look sideways at you while telling you or when he sits in his high chair and bobbles back and forth during his telling. That alone is a funny sight.

Music and singing are a daily occurrence around our house. Joseph recently learned how to turn on our organ by himself. Many times a day he carries his little stool over to the organ, turns it on, picks a wild percussion/drum beat, and plays the keys in toddler fashion. Often he'll bring his guitar stand microphone over as well and sing along with his accompaniment. He calls the organ a "no" (or piano). He never turns it off. He likes it best at its loudest setting. And this entertainment seems his favourite pastime at 7am.

Joseph is constantly singing wherever we go too. He favourites these days are: "Allua" ("Alleluia"), "I wii way" ("I will wait" by Mumford & Sons), and whatever Latin hymn Dan is practicing Mass parts for. We explained to him that after the "Allua" at Mass Father reads the "Gosey" (Gospel). In Joseph's world, this means he should sing the Alleluia sometime during Father's homily. Father doesn't seem to mind, though, and told everyone at Mass last week that this is what Joseph was doing. I think he was a little proud of his favourite little parishioner.

The Goofer has also picked up on the typical line that follows a sneeze: "bess ooo." Sometimes we'll hear his little voice tell us "bess oo" from the other room when he hears us sneeze. But his favourite to is continue coughing long after he's finished choking on a little water and then say "bess oo" for himself. Earlier this week in Mass, after receiving a blessing from Father in the Communion line, Joseph walked the entire way back to our pew, telling me (quite loudly) "bess oo, bess oo" -- I guess Father was giving him a "bess ooo" too.

We've been trying to teach Joseph to say yes for months and months. Until recently, to indicate a he wanted something he would always give a short little fake sounding laugh. But now he's just figured out a way to say what he means: "ses." Granted, I have to tell him to say yes still, but we're getting there slowly. 

My favourite, though, is the newest "ses peas." When he was smaller, I thought it would be great to teach Joseph sign language for please -- but that never happened. Now that he's talking more and more, though, we couldn't just let that piece of manners go unnoticed, so we've been getting him to say please. Now, if you know Joseph remotely well, you'll also know that his favourite veggies are peas, that he eats them almost everyday, and that we don't bother cooking them for him anymore, but just give them to him frozen. You can imagine his merriment when we taught him that when you say "peas" (please) you get what you want. It was a pretty good joke!