See You Later, Alligator

One of the joys of having kids is getting to re-experience a bunch of the fun stuff – except this time ’round, you have the wherewithal to really appreciate it. Things like the magic of Christmas…getting lost in cartoons on Saturday morning…having a water fight on a hot summer day. Unless you are one of those rare individuals who has maintained their joyous youthfulness well into adulthood, it’s these little things tend to get overlooked or abandoned as we get older. Until “Junior” comes along, just begging you to share your secrets for a happy childhood with them.

My eldest – right as he figured out we were going to Disneyland.

For me, reading stories at bedtime is an extra special treat. See, when I was little, this wasn’t really a part of my “routine”. In fact, the only time “reading with my parents” came into play was in grade 4, when I was tested and found to be reading at a grade 1 level…at which point my mom would force me read Nancy Drew books out loud to her nightly, yelling at me whenever I messed up. Yeah. Not so much fun, really. So curling up in bed with my son and a good Dr. Seuss book – or better yet, Dogzilla or Bad Cat – well, it makes me feel like I’m getting a “do-over” of some kind.

Somewhere along the way, we read a book that made use of the “See you later, alligator…in a while, crocodile” rhymes. Naturally, from that point on whenever one of us would go out somewhere, we would call-and-answer our farewells this way. After a while, we were making up our own rhymes – “See you soon, you big baboon,” and “After that, my kitty cat.” Aww. With me wanting to work with well-known animal phrases for the quilted critters, I just Googled these phrases and found there are in fact many more to play with.

• Bye bye, butterfly
• Give a hug, ladybug
• Toodle-ee-oo, kangaroo
• See you soon, raccoon
• Can’t stay, blue jay
• Manana, iguana
• Be sweet, parakeet
• Blow a kiss, goldfish
• Take care, polar bear
• Out the door, dinosaur

Crazy! Who knew there were so many ways to Marco Polo a goodbye? And on that note, I thought I’d tackle the most well known of these phrases, to “get back on the quilted critter horse” after some dismal butterfly attempts last week. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the results.

Okay. Well, then. I guess it’s time to go, buffalo. 😉