The Moments - Chapter 15: Those Scandalous Chipmunks

               The details have been kept secret from everyone (except the dozens of people I’ve already told) until now.  Here, I will share the identity of who deserves blame for all of the world’s flatulence.  It is a story that simply must be told and a truth that must finally be revealed.  It is also an example of one of the first times that something my son said simply made me scratch my head and realize that there is little rhyme or reason to the random things that come out of a child’s mouth when they are first learning to speak.

               Joey was barely over a year old when he revealed this powerful truth to me.  He had verbally, for a few weeks, been past the phase of simply saying a collection of words and was getting into multi-word phrases.  They weren’t necessarily sensible phrases, but solid proof that he was starting to put words together with some kind of meaning in his own mind.  It is strange for me to now look back at that time and know that it was only last year, while within the last few days I’ve had multiple complex conversations with my brilliant little chatterbox.  During the Spring and Summer of last year, however, I eagerly awaited the first random words of the morning to come from Joey because they often started the day with a dose of hilarity.  There are many other moments in this category that still stand out and occasionally replay in my mind, but my favorite has to be this…

               As was my weekend routine with Joey in those days, I entered his room after hearing enough noise on the baby monitor to know that his slumber had ended.  Upon opening the door, I entered his room and approached the bed where Joey was already standing up and sleepily looking at me.  I softly said, “Good morning, Joey.”  The cute little sleepy-head swayed from side to side a bit, still getting his bearings.  Several seconds passed before Joey’s first word of the day emerged, “Munk.”  I was confused.  I had gotten used to him saying something that made a little sense to me.  I asked him, “What did you say, Joey?”  He repeated with a little more clarity in his voice, “Munk.”  My mind started racing into translator mode.  What did ‘munk’ mean to him?  Was I not connecting it to another word properly?  Without much of a clue, except that he probably wasn’t talking about male members of a silent religious order, I said, “Munk?  Is that what you said?”  He confirmed, “Uh-huh.  Munk.”  Figuring I would give it a try, I asked, “Joey, are you talking about ‘chipmunks’?”  Still with his sleepy face, Joey slowly responded with, “Uh-huh.  Munk….  Alvin pooted.”  So that was the chipmunk in question!  We had an answer.  It was also one of the audibly clearest statements my son had ever made around me up to that point.  But ‘Alvin pooted’?  Was this his way of telling me that he had passed gas before I entered the room?  I’m not sure about that instance, but it became our standard phrase for the passing of gas from then on (still is).  In the weeks that followed, if a toot was heard in the vicinity of Joey, he often followed it with “Alvin pooted” or the more colloquial “Alvin a-pooted.”  (As Sophia taught us in the 5^th season of “The Golden Girls,” “People only use the ‘a-‘ when a really big storm is a-comin’ or a-brewin’.”  Sometimes, Joey brews quite a storm.)  I’m sure that Joey had watched some old “Alvin & the Chipmunks” cartoons or had seen part of one of the newer movies by that time but, ironically, he and I have, to this day, never watched any of those things together.  He had had just enough of it to stick out in his mind then.  Whether he continues the tradition out of his own memory or not, he now has the constant reminders from his Daddy and Mama Tee and Daddy J (who is famously credited with the declaration that "We're gonna wake up pooting icicles," when faced with a cold winter's night in Chattanooga) and a few others who will never let Alvin’s gas pass when anyone passes gas.  Given the style and attitude with which Joey now uses and repeats the line, I think it can easily qualify as his first inside joke.

               It may not be your favorite topic to discuss or even read about (thanks for sticking with me this far along) but you can’t deny that a little gas can be quite a gasser from time to time.  So, anytime you feel a little rumble or hear a toot when there isn’t a train in sight, just take a page from Joey’s playbook and blame it on a cartoon chipmunk (I’m sure Simon and Theodore put up with it in some homes, too) and then go about your business.  It’s their gas to claim.  As their song says, “It’s been a while, but we’re back in style.” (the Chipmunks, not their acts of flatulence)  Join me and Joey in making Alvin the spokesman for your personal gas company.