"Buffalo Dan"

It's cute when kids get to the point in their speech development when they begin repeating phrases that you continually say.  You can really see who they are taking after, mom or dad, as these little phrases begin to reflect their personality.  Yesterday, my son, James, said "Crap!"at the dinner table after my wife had realized that she forgotten to finish something for work.  My daughter, Ana started saying "Oh, come on!  Really?"  after having spent a lot of morning traffic sessions with me in the car. 

But, sometimes, these can cause a lot of concern in the eyes of people from the outside looking in. 

When my oldest, Danny, was about two years old, he was really picking up phrases really well.  He could repeat whole blocks of dialogue from his favorite movies and sing entire songs.  These of course, were from constant repetition.  Another thing that he would hear repeatedly, from the time he was born, was something I would say after bath time.  While drying him off and doing the after-bath lotion rub down, I would always say, in my best, creepy Ted Levine voice, "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."  I know, I know...That's just wrong.  But at the time, I thought it was kind of funny.  For over two years, I would do this almost every day.  Until, one day....

The apartment complex that my ex-wife and I lived in at the time was always full of the in and out residents.  Almost every night, we could hear music, laughing and the occasional domestic fight.  One particular night, it seems that the downstairs neighbor had had enough of her other-half's shenanigans. There was a lot of screaming and apparently he started bleeding at one point.  The next morning, as I was getting Danny ready for the day, there was a loud knock on the door.  I stopped what I was doing and opened the door to two uniformed police officers. 

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, sir.  We were called last night to a domestic dispute downstairs.  We are asking all the neighbors if they heard anything that might help shed some light."

"Honestly, Officer, I can't think of -"

And that's when it happened.  Danny comes running from out of the hallway, completely naked, lotion bottle in hand.  He looks right at the police and says, in that little kid voice, "It puts lotion on skin, or else it gets hose again."

"What did he just say?"  The two officers looked at each other, and then back at me with an eyebrow raised.

I couldn't help but start laughing nervously (And those of you who know me personally know how creepy I look when I laugh nervously) "Oh - That?  He...Ha!...He's just being silly!"

At this pont, Danny has approached the officers, extending the bottle out to them, saying louder and angrier "It puts lotion on skin!  It does this whenever it's told!"

The only thing that could have made this even worse is if Q Lazzarus' "Goodbye Horses" was playing in the backgroud and Danny had a mouth full of poorly applied lipstick...I just looked at the officers (who at this point had begun smirking), dropped my head, and closed the door.

I sometimes wonder if "speech therapy" is really a term used for the therapy that parents require while their kids develop speech...