My plans to be the next great children's entertainer may have hit a snag.
My little niece Olivia (not a real niece, but the daughter of a friend) is 18 months, and diligently learning her animals. She's got his little picture collage with several different animals portrayed, and she can unfailingly identify many of them --- if you say the animal's name, she'll point to it. She can easily find a starfish, an octopus, and a shark, so clearly she's destined to be a George Costanza-style marine biologist.
One animal she was having trouble with was the elephant. So, being a great uncle, I decided to help her identification process by miming what an elephant looks like. I stuck my arm across my face like it was a big trunk, and let loose a mighty bellow. Olivia found this totally delightful, and our animal-ID game was somewhat delayed while she insisted that I do it over and over. It eventually got to the point where she herself was putting her arm over his nose, imitating a trunk! Oh, it was ever so adorable.
At first, I assumed I was the world's greatest educator since every time I said "elephant," she didn't only just find the elephant on the page, she immediately put her arm up to her nose. Even more impressively, the only time she didn't do this was to point behind us to the shelf. Sitting on that shelf was, you guessed it, her Snuffleupagus toy. Well, okay, I guess you might've first guessed an actual elephant, but still, Snuffy is pretty darn close.
As I was just on the verge of creating a LinkedIn page for myself as a freelance tutor for pre-K children, however, I suddenly realized a flaw in my system. By repeating the elephant/nose thing so often, Olivia hadn't just begun to associate the arm/nose gesture with an elephant...she associated it with me, full stop. So now every time she sees me, she automatically makes the elephant nose.
Now, I'm as willing as the next man to poke fun at my own obesity. But now I've created a situation where a child may or may not consider me to be an actual human/elephant hybrid. God forbid we're ever out in public sometime, and I happen to be wearing a grey shirt, or maybe my ears are looking slightly larger than usual. One stray gesture from Olivia will surely lead to some random passerby yelling "hey look at this guy! He's a human elephant!" and thus drawing a crowd that will start tossing peanuts at me. Just as I begin to loudly protest, I'll randomly see a mouse on the ground and be startled, which won't help my case even though it's something any HUMAN would do while reacting to vermin.
In short, I've created a scenario that will undoubtedly lead to eventual humiliation. I may need to summon my inner John Hurt and start yelling "Do I amuse you?" at Olivia, while she blinks uncomprehendingly. Never too early for babies to learn about David Lynch.
My little niece Olivia (not a real niece, but the daughter of a friend) is 18 months, and diligently learning her animals. She's got his little picture collage with several different animals portrayed, and she can unfailingly identify many of them --- if you say the animal's name, she'll point to it. She can easily find a starfish, an octopus, and a shark, so clearly she's destined to be a George Costanza-style marine biologist.
One animal she was having trouble with was the elephant. So, being a great uncle, I decided to help her identification process by miming what an elephant looks like. I stuck my arm across my face like it was a big trunk, and let loose a mighty bellow. Olivia found this totally delightful, and our animal-ID game was somewhat delayed while she insisted that I do it over and over. It eventually got to the point where she herself was putting her arm over his nose, imitating a trunk! Oh, it was ever so adorable.
At first, I assumed I was the world's greatest educator since every time I said "elephant," she didn't only just find the elephant on the page, she immediately put her arm up to her nose. Even more impressively, the only time she didn't do this was to point behind us to the shelf. Sitting on that shelf was, you guessed it, her Snuffleupagus toy. Well, okay, I guess you might've first guessed an actual elephant, but still, Snuffy is pretty darn close.
As I was just on the verge of creating a LinkedIn page for myself as a freelance tutor for pre-K children, however, I suddenly realized a flaw in my system. By repeating the elephant/nose thing so often, Olivia hadn't just begun to associate the arm/nose gesture with an elephant...she associated it with me, full stop. So now every time she sees me, she automatically makes the elephant nose.
Now, I'm as willing as the next man to poke fun at my own obesity. But now I've created a situation where a child may or may not consider me to be an actual human/elephant hybrid. God forbid we're ever out in public sometime, and I happen to be wearing a grey shirt, or maybe my ears are looking slightly larger than usual. One stray gesture from Olivia will surely lead to some random passerby yelling "hey look at this guy! He's a human elephant!" and thus drawing a crowd that will start tossing peanuts at me. Just as I begin to loudly protest, I'll randomly see a mouse on the ground and be startled, which won't help my case even though it's something any HUMAN would do while reacting to vermin.
In short, I've created a scenario that will undoubtedly lead to eventual humiliation. I may need to summon my inner John Hurt and start yelling "Do I amuse you?" at Olivia, while she blinks uncomprehendingly. Never too early for babies to learn about David Lynch.
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