Weekly Boo 7.24.25

When my son first started saying a few words, he started referring to himself as Boo. We thought we noticed it happening, but when he started talking more it became obvious. Now that he knows his name, he usually refers to himself by his name. But in moments of crisis, when he doesn’t have time to think before expressing his needs – like when he really wants a tomato – he still calls himself Boo.

“Pick Boo up.”

“Wipe Boo’s hands.”

While sobbing, “tomato for Boo.”

At home we call him all kinds of things and Boo is not one of them. But if my child identifies as Boo, who am I to question it? So I’m going to call him Boo here.

Our kitchen trash can has a locking feature he can’t figure out. Sometimes he finds something on the floor that he deems trash – a fuzz, a piece of string – and he carries it to the garbage can and says “in the garbage can.” I’ll come over and open it so he can throw the item in. The other day, I heard him chanting “in the garbage can, in the garbage can,” so I walked over to see what he had, and he was standing at the trash can holding all the TV remotes.

His favorite foods right now are tomatoes, pickled onion, salmon and hummus. And now blackberries. Now that it’s peak blackberry season and we can – and do! – pick blackberries growing alongside any old abandoned shed somebody’s been stabbed in, he’s getting the idea that blackberries just exist out in the world, that we can simply go outside and find blackberries. This is going to be a problem for us in a few weeks. He goes to bed and I hear him in his crib saying “blackberries, blackberries, blackberries.”

To indicate that something has stopped, or is no longer there, or maybe never was there, he says “all done.” If he sees a fly and says “butterfly” and I say “that’s not a butterfly, it’s just a fly,” he says “all done butterfly.” If he has finished his shredded carrots he says “all done shredded carrots.” Lately when he feels utterly overcome by god-knows-what, in the way that toddlers are overcome a thousand times a day, he furiously tries to bite whoever’s around, usually me. I say “no biting mama,” and hand him something he can chew on, and he stops and repeats “no biting mama.” Then he says “all done no biting mama.”

When he’s finished all his noodles, though, he says “goodbye noodles,” which I think indicates yearning. It’s how I feel when the noodles are gone, too.