The name game

Biscuit loves fun-sounding words and phrases. He likes and recognizes when words rhyme. And when I make nonsense noises, that makes him giggle even harder.

So I figured he'd like "The Name Game."

Griffin, Griffin, bo-biffin,
Banana-fana fo-fiffin,
Me-my-mo-miffin,
Griffin!

I've sung it to him several times, but he was surprised me the other night. As Biscuit was getting ready to eat a cookie, he very quietly sang his own version:

Cookie, cookie, bo-bookie,
Banana-fana fo-fookie,
Me-my-mo-mookie,
Cookie!

That's a lot of syllables, and he got it exactly right! (And of course I made him sing it two more times. I asked him to sing it a third time, but he gave me "the look" and said, "Moooooom!")

When Biscuit was just learning to talk, I'd ask him what a certain toy's name was. It didn't occur to me at the time that he didn't have a cache of names to choose from. The only names he knew then were Mama, Daddy and a few others. 

He named his stuffed dog "Puppy." He didn't have a frame of reference to come up with Spot or Fido or Rover.

And speaking of Rover ... one of my favorite stories from my Mama's childhood was that she and her friend Bonnie had imaginary horses named Rover and Un-Rover. One day, they rode Rover and Un-Rover to the store. They had some change to get candy. They got about halfway home and realized they had left their imaginary horses tied up in front of the store.

THEY WALKED ALL THE WAY BACK TO GET THEM!!! For real and for true!

Anyway, we got Biscuit a bouncy horse, and out of the blue, he told us he was going to name it Pinto. To this day, we don't know where the name Pinto came from.

Biscuit's list of names has expanded even more lately. 

His stick horse was Blackie Pinto. Then it became Jake. Then it became Shooting Star. And in the past couple of weeks, it's gone back to Jake.

Some of his plastic horses are named Laddie, Buttermilk and Shooting Star. He has dogs named Ginger, Sparky, Grover, Jingle and Barky. And he has a pirate named Ching-chaw (don't even ask about that one!).

When in doubt, Biscuit will still just add a "y" to the end of whatever the animal or thing is. He has a rabbit named Rabbity and a dragon named Dragony.

But who knows, it seems like every critter is up for a name change on Biscuit's whim.