We live just down the hill from a major university hospital. Which means we often see emergency helicopters flying very low over our house. For a five-year-old boy, this is always cause for excitement (for a forty-year-old dad, it is too).
The other day, as my son and I were playing in our yard, a helicopter zipped just above our trees. It felt so close, as though if we just reached up, we could touch its landing skids. We craned our necks, tilted our chins skyward, shielded the sun from our eyes, and marveled at the magic of technology and engineering.
“Wow!” I said to him. “How cool is it that we can see so many uppacopters right here in our backyard?”
“You mean ‘helicopters,’ daddy?”
As it does each and every time I realize that nothing I do can stop the forward march of time, the growing up of my little boy, my heart broke just a tiny bit.
Because he was right. ‘Helicopter’ is exactly what I meant. But for years, it wasn’t a helicopter at all. It was an uppacopter, a word invented by my son, beautifully, hilariously, and quite accurately describing the action of a helicopter.
The older my son gets, the more these little -isms that were his and his alone are disappearing, always reminding me that my time with my little boy is fleeting. And while we have so much to look forward to, it’s a reminder that those times will never come back.
Luckily, I’ve kept a list of his magical and singular dictionary since he started talking.
Here are some of my favorites:
Magic-cadabra (abra cadabra!)
Muddle (a muddy puddle)
Uppacopter
Hornicorn (unicorn, and like uppacopter, an all-too-perfect description)
Bop (one of his grandfathers, known in our family as “Pop”)
Tampa (his other grandfather, known as “Grandpa”)
Heartbeep (heartbeat)
Emmicent (an elephant)
Oggles (googles)
Groach (a cockroach)
Chipnitz (Cheeze-Its)
“Wherever I'm not, here I come!” (when he’s “it” during hide-and-seek)
“My belly is crumbling” (when his stomach hurts)
Which, of course, is more easily described as “having the crumbles.”
Of course, as our eighteen-month-old is starting to talk, we’ll soon have another dictionary of words that are hers and hers alone. In fact, she already has a few like “MOMO!” (which means “more” or “Elmo,” depending on the context), “bruhbruh” (“brother”), and “wuhwuh” (water”). Still, I can’t wait to learn what her hornicorns and uppacopters become.
Of course, someday soon, I’ll ask her if she’s seen her bruhbruh and she’ll quickly correct me and, just as I was beneath the uppacopter, I’ll be reminded that my babies are only babies for an instant in time.
loved this and just had to share one of my favorites: I raised my twins on the upper west side in Manhattan where every day our building would get packages from the big brown truck and the handsome delivery dude in brown...my son would get so excited when he saw the "UP's!" we didn't have the heart to tell him it was pronounced U P S for years cuz it was just too cute!