The Zoo Story, Moo-Moo, & Scribbles

For the final essay of 2021, a look back at some memorable parenting moments

As I mentioned in last week’s essay, I love quotes. When I heard a funny, naïve or unusually observant line from one of our children, I jotted it down or built an essay around it.

Nicholas, the oldest, was quick with the quip, as was Ben. They also were quick to clash and could be stubborn as hell. Kate’s sense of humor was out there at times, but she could be unusually observant and perceptive. Emma was quick to note when her memories differed from mine, so I made an extra special effort to quote her verbatim.

Here are a couple of stories to help me illustrate:

“The Zoo Story”

It started over the word “but” — or “butt,” depending on how you spell it.

When we first moved to the D.C. area in 2001, that was a big word around our house. For a brief period, we had to admonish our children and tell them not to use the word as it relates to the human anatomy. But (no pun intended) we soon found ourselves unable to use the word in a conjunctive sense without being told why it was a bad idea.

“Oooh, Daddy used the word,” they said in joyous glee (glee always came in unison). “Daddy, you’re not supposed to say that.”

“But,” I protested, “that wasn’t the bad butt. It was, uh, the good but.”

Thus was born the “good but” and the “bad butt,” a slight, subtle, but nonetheless important distinction for my children to draw at that nascent phase of their lives.

If nothing else, pre-school children are literal. And with our kids so close in age, literal came at us with the volume and intensity of a presidential press conference. Jill and I had to find some way to bring compound sentences back into our home speech.

“The good but,” I explained, “is when you say, ‘I want to do this, but I can’t right now.’ The bad butt is when you refer to someone’s bottom.”

That seemed to work for a time, until my youngest daughter and I went to the zoo. We were walking from site to site on a brisk January day. We saw the pandas, the giraffes, the elephants. And then we went to the beaver exhibit.

“Daddy, where’s the beaver?”

“He’s in his house.”

“What do you call his house?”

“Well, Emma,” I said, steeling myself. “It’s a dam.”

“Oh, Daddy…” she said with a level of sincerity only petite 4-year-olds can muster. “That’s a bad word.”

“No, no Emma. It’s not the bad ‘damn.’ It’s the good dam.”

“Oh,” she said, her wheels turning as onlookers snickered. “So you mean there’s a good but, and a bad butt, and a good dam, and a bad damn.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Daddy,” Emma said with a sense of confidence. “I don’t say the bad butt, and I don’t say the bad damn. I just say shit.”

I had no retort, just a sheepish reply.

“Well, Emma, there’s no such thing as good shit.”

And a man walking by said, “I beg to differ.”

“The Saga of Moo-Moo”

We’ve all heard the phrase, “You’ll be able to laugh about this someday.” It’s usually paired with, “Laughing is better than crying.” The story of Moo-Moo is one that has always made my oldest son steam, my youngest son squirm, and the rest of us shake our heads in bemusement.

The entire family — all six of us — was flying home from my dad’s memorial service in August 2007. It was a special time, the only opportunity all nine of my parents’ grandchildren have been together, and an exhausting (as you might expect) experience.

At this point, Nicholas is 14, Kate is 10, and Ben and Emma are 9. All handled themselves very well throughout the trip, so I should have expected the wheels to fall off at some point. And they did.

We got off the plane at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport and, as usual, did the inventory a little too late. Nicholas realized he’d left his sketchbook on the plane and, more important/catastrophic, a small stuffed red cow he had named “Moo-Moo.”

“Moo-Moo” was one of those last throwbacks to childhood bedtime, the stuffed animal/blanket that you’re never really ready to part with despite your desire to be an adult. In Nicholas’ hormonal teenage eyes, he couldn’t deal with the loss of his grandfather and “Moo-Moo,” too.

We went to the ticket counter and pled our case to the Southwest attendant, a very nice woman who promised to do whatever she could to help. She sent someone to look for the stuffed animal.

We waited and waited. The plane’s takeoff was delayed. Nicholas quickly sketched a “Lost” poster for “Moo-Moo.” The very nice woman patiently took the “Unchecked Article Loss Report.” 

At some point in this process, “Moo-Moo” mysteriously appeared. As it turns out, Ben had picked it up and hidden it as we got off the plane. Only after the plane was stopped from taking off did the then 9-year-old realize the joke had gone horribly awry.

We slinked out of the airport, making profuse apologies to the nice (though understandably pissed off) attendant and pointing visual daggers at our youngest son. It was a long, quiet ride home. I thought, in some way, it was my father’s ghost messing with me.

Moo-Moo’s fate would not be mentioned again — until we received a mysterious box on April 8, 2011, almost four years after the incident. The box included Nicholas’ sketchbook, the “Lost” poster, the original incident report, and an unsigned letter that read:

“This book was found at BWI Airport by one of my cleaners a few years ago — I put it in a box intending to mail it to you. The address was in the article loss report but the box was inadvertently placed in our storage area. I saw the box and realized it was never mailed — sorry for the mistake. The book has tremendous sentimental value… Thanks.”

Then the P.S.: “I cannot vouch for the cow. Seems like it was never located.”

Jill and I had to smile and shake our heads. We called Nicholas, who was glad to hear about the sketchbook but still seemed to have PTSD from the experience. Later, we told Ben, who remembered the cold ride home and the withering looks from his older brother on that sad night.

“Stop! I don’t want to hear about it,” he said. “I still have dreams about that cow.”

Scribbles & Bits: Quoting the Foursome

Here are some of the memorable quotes I mentioned. Most were written down when the kids were in that 10 to 17 range:

• Ben (circa 2011): "If a boy can still sing 'Gary, Indiana,' then I'm telling you, his voice has NOT changed."

• Talking to Emma as we drove the obstacle course that is Northern Virginia.:

— E: I heard it was pothole awareness month.

— Me: Do you think they're doing anything about it?

— E (hoping she doesn't fall into one): Funny, Dad. You're funny.

• Kate, after drinking a Slurpee to mark getting her braces off: "My tongue looks like my hair did" when it was dyed. "But then, my head looked like a fire hydrant."

• Ben: You know you're in a theater family when you "call out" sick rather than "call in" sick.

• Nicholas, not the sports fan, watching a football game with us: “When is intermission?”

• Emma, after I asked her to get coffee with “three shots” at Starbucks while I got gas at a nearby service station: "Can I buy those? I'm just a kid."

• Nicholas: "You know you're in trouble when the parent pulls out the middle name."

• Ben: "When a girl asks, 'Do these pants make my butt look fat?' Don't agree — it's just good common sense."

• Nicholas, then 16 and in the midst of the self-described “dark ages”: “Buying stuff is just the manly version of shopping.”

• Emma: "Sure they tell you that you can eat all the ice cream you want when you have your tonsils taken out. What they don't tell you is you won't want to eat a thing after that happens, and that sucks."

• Ben (circa 2010): "Have you noticed that British people don't talk like us, but when they sing you can't tell the difference?"

• Nicholas: “I’m so ADD I get distracted reading a picture book.”

• Kate, who was going through a visual arts phase: "Lips are tough, but I hate drawing ears. Every time I try to make them look realistic, they look like my small intestine."

• Ben at 13, upon being told that the conductor would be watching him as he rode unaccompanied on the train to New York: "I don't know about that. I'm not sure I want him watching me watching 'Dexter.' That could be a little awkward."

• Emma, after dropping her at a friend's house slathered in holiday lights: "I feel so under decorated."

• Ben: "I like snow, but when it doesn't give you a snow day, it's useless."

This likely will be the final essay of 2021. I hope you’re enjoying these pieces. We hope you all have a safe and joyful holiday season.