Where's YOUR beep-bo? 

In Praise of the Beep-bo

My youngest is at that wonderful stage where she knows a lot of words, but can’t say very many. Ask Salome to point to her eyes, nose, or mouth and she does so instantly. Ask her where her tongue is and she impishly sticks it out with a lopsided grin that shows off her one dimple.

But when she tries to ask a question, tell a story, or tattle on her sister, it comes out in a sort-of babble language that my husband fondly refers to as “midget chipmunk.”

Salome, who inherited her sense of humor from said husband, tells a lot of belly button jokes. It started very early, when she learned that people thought it was funny when she pulled up her shirt and stuck out her belly. As she matures, so her range of belly button jokes has expanded. Now, it’s funny to poke other people in the belly button (no longer funny to me now that she spends half of her nursing time digging around for lint and the other half trying to poke out my eyes or stick her finger in my nose!).

By far her best crowd reaction comes when she attempts to say “belly button.”

“Beep-bo?” she asks coyly, batting her eyelashes and cocking her head to the side as she raises her shirt to indicate said body part.

“Beh-bah,” she says confidently, trying to imitate whichever adult has responded to her.

It is a joy to watch her play. Play at language and at understanding the world. I am me, she says, and I am no longer connected to you, except by this joke that we share.