the button

My 18-month-old niece, Button Baby, is a genius. Now, hold on. I’m sure your son/daughter/niece/nephew, etc., is a genius, too. But since she’s the only baby genius I currently know, she’s the only one I can write about. You understand, I’m sure.

We were visiting The Button the other day, and my-oh-MY, is that child verbal! When we arrived, she was busily counting to 10 on the fingers my brother was holding up for her. I was a little surprised, to say the least.

My Beloved brought with him a small, stuffed koala bear he had bought for her on his recent trip to Australia. As he handed it to her and she squeezed it to her chubby tummy, he spontaneously said, “Her name is Sheila.” (Any female in Auz. is a “sheila.”)

Frankly, I rolled my eyes when he said it, thinking it was a rather difficult name to pronounce. Not for The Button. She smiled up at her Uncle Beloved and cooed, clear as a bell, “Shee-la, Shee-la, Shee-la,” as she poked vigorously at Sheila’s eyes. Then, as if to make sure we understood fully the scope of her accomplishment, she stopped cooing and began chanting loudly, “SHEE-LAHH! SHEE-LAHH! SHEE-LAHHH!!” while triumphantly waving that poor bear around by its faux fur foot. I half expected to hear that post-Super Bowl commercial voice intoning, “Button Baby, you’ve JUST pronounced the word ‘SHEILA’! What are you going to do NOW?!” just so she could respond, hitting all the letters, mind you:

“I’MMMM GOING TO GO TO DISNEYLANDDD!!!”

Later, as I was tickling her soft, tiny feet, I absentmindedly started reciting, “This Little Piggy”on those niblet toes. I mumbled through that whole disturbing tale of shopping pigs and pouting pigs, carnivorous pigs and ascetic pigs, til I got to the big finish where that last, apparently incontinent, piggy goes “wee wee wee wee all the way home!” It’s a mind-boggling herd of piggies, when you think about it. But she didn’t know the difference. She giggled and gurgled and shrieked, loving the whole ridiculous thing. “More. Tee Tee, MORE!” she happily bossed. I started again. “This little piggy went to the –”

“Marr-kkett,” she said, with the emphasis and diction of a Shakespearean actor.

“Yes, Button! You’re right!” I clapped. She nodded. She knew she was right, but, according to my brother, she had never even heard this weird piggy tale before.

Still, she proceeded to help me out with the rest of the story. She chimed in on the “roast beef”and she crowed about the “none.” And she especially exulted about the “wee wee wee wee all the way home!” In her version, though, piggy’s bladder problem sounded much more intense. According to her, he went “wee wee wee wee WEE WEE WEE WEEEEEEE!!” all the way home. Really, all these years and poor piggy’s little pickle just seems to be getting worse. Someone either needs to help piggy out or help him into a nice honey glaze.

Soon, Button Baby will explain it to us all.