Curious George

I love Curious George. My 4 year old is not a TV watcher in general but loves this show. I, in turn, love it too. Through this love of Curious George we are adding to our already unique family language. We can thank George for the terms “Smell-o-Vision”, “Flopification Pot” and “Window Monkey”. I am now fond of saying: “I want a window monkey! Where’s MY window monkey?” (using a tone of voice much like Veruca Salt from Willie Wonka).

My husband already calls our son “monkey bucket”. He’s the king of nicknames. When our son was born we argued over what to name him. We’re not so good with boy names. I wanted Jalen, he wanted anything but. Actually, it had more to do with Chicago sports than anything. You see, we have 2 dogs named “Walter” and “Payton”. Our first son is named Samuel, but we call him Sammy (as in Sammy Sosa – that was the deal we struck). So for the second boy we went through any number of Chicago sports player names. Brian (Urlacher), Mike (Ditka), Michael Jordan (first or last name would have worked), George (Halas). I think he might have even considered Rex. Anthony was the only name I would consider, after Anthony Thomas. We flipped coins. I lost. Anthony it was (and his middle name actually is Thomas).

When we brought him home from the hospital our older son (then 1 ½ years old) couldn’t say Anthony. He called him Ant-ny and it stuck. My husband also called him “A-train” which later turned in to “Freight Train” and that stuck. The monkey part came from the way he would just hang on his. As a baby and toddler you could hold him on your hip and he would “just mold to your body” as one of my friends’ mother said. He was like a monkey – you could let go and he’d hang on.

Don’t ask me where bucket came from. Oh, and sometimes there’s a “lips” thrown in for good measure. We sure do love our Freight Monkey Bucket Lips.