I said yes to a jungle themed baby room.  I said yes to stuffed monkey toys.  I even said yes to a monkey-themed birthday party complete with a monkey-shaped birthday cake (even though I argued strongly for a worm-shaped one).  But a monkey for a baby?  I didn’t agree to that.

With all the primate-related gear in his room, it’s no wonder Worm feels that he is 100% baboon.  He talks gibberish to his poly-stuffed brethren every day.  They hang out in his room.  (Get it?  Hang out?  Because monkeys ha…never mind.)  In the mornings, he greets his hairy cousins with a secret opposable-thumbs handshake.  Worm doesn’t yet understand why their tail is on the back and his is in the front.  (Though he’ll figure it out after he wraps it around a tree and hangs from it.)

As most monkeys do, Worm does too.  Hunched over, his knuckles and knees smack the floor at lightning speed.  He can cover the house end to end in less than 10 seconds.  Worm has recently passed the 14-month old mark and there’s hardly a desire for him to stand up, unless it’s to grab something up high (like a banana or swing from a drawer handle, which seems to come all too naturally).  I’ve also witnessed him climb up the furniture with uncanny deftness.  For a toddler that can barely balance on two feet, he defies gravity when attached to a vertical surface.  He climbs on the crib, the coffee table, the high chair, the bookshelf, the bed, and the couch!  Crawling-standing-walking-running has shifted to crawling-standing-climbing-swinging.  And Worm has no problem with this evolutionary deviation.

To give you an idea of Worm’s climbing prowess, we’ve placed a couch in front of him.  (I would have let Worm climb a tree in the back yard, but then Steph would beat me senseless once she got home from work.)

I Need To Conquer This Couch!

I Can Do This All Day Long…

Wanna See My Swirl Move?

Victory is Mine!

 

5 Clues To Why Worm Could Be A Monkey:

  1. He squawks and screams to communicate.  You have probably heard the short, ear-piercing shrieks and sound bursts that monkeys make.  Worm’s cacophony of noises are identical!  I can’t quite decipher and understand the many sounds because I’m not a primate, but once some prepubescent teenager creates the first monkey-english language app for the iPhone, he’ll be rich and I’ll be…well, kicking myself for giving away such a brilliant idea.
  2. He has interestingly placed body hair.  The fuzz on his forehead, back, and ears was cute at first.  But the fact that neither Steph nor I are hairy leads us to presume there is more ape than man in our son.  The “Ah ha!” moment will come when Worm’s hairline grows into his eyebrows.
  3. He destroys objects in fits of rage.  Monkeys are notorious for doing things like this.  They just flip a mental switch and chaos ensues.  Worm has that crazy button.  Since this blog is PG, my publicist won’t allow the carnage to be shown.  It’s bad for PR.
  4. He has a strange affection for Curious George.  His eyes light up every time he sees George’s face on the TV.  Worm even seems to understand George’s monkey sounds and gestures.  Very strange indeed.
  5. He loves bananas!  Every monkey goes bananas for bananas and Worm is no exception.  You should see what happens when I put whipped cream on the bananas…

I want Worm to grow up into a functional, kind, and caring adult, even if he has to beat his chest and swing from trees to do it.  There’s a little part of me that would love for him to grow up and be a man, just like his daddy.  But the other part of me wants him to shoot for the stars and become ‘Ape-Man’ for the Greatest Show on Earth!