Bye, Bye, Bullstrode

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, as soon as Finny learns your name, he’ll start sweeping you out the door, whether you’re ready to go or not. With his new social language confidence and his extraordinary singing ability, Finny is cheerfully inclined to sing goodbye to everyone and everything he meets these days.

When I pick him up from bed in the morning, and he knows it’s time to put his pacifier and blankie away, with his hair pointing this way and that, he immediately bursts into song. “Ba-bye, Tissa! Ba-Bye, Tissa! Ba-bye, Tissa! It’s time to say Ba-bye!” Then, insert “Bankie” and repeat. Going downstairs? Insert “Stairs” and repeat. Getting off the phone with Grandma or Grandpa? Insert “Gramma” or “Pop-pop” and repeat.

Recently we had our friends, Sara and Bob, and their kids, Sadie and Robert, over to play. It’s been a few weeks now since their visit and yet still randomly with a mouthful of cheese sandwich at lunch, he’ll start belting out, “Ba-bye, Sawah! Ba-bye Bobert! Ba-bye Sadie!”

Earlier this week, as I was brushing my teeth and Finny was busy reorganizing his books, he suddenly bolted into the bathroom for one of Thomas’s many friends from the island of Sodor, his toy bath boat, Bullstrode. When he promptly bolted back out into the hallway, and I suddenly heard a loud metal clang, followed by “Ba-bye, Bullstrode!” I knew that Bullstrode had taken his third boat trip down the laundry chute.

Occasionally, I’ll even hear him from the corner of the room saying some parting words to himself, “Ba-bye, Ninny! Ba-bye, Ninny!”

Sometimes if Finny is tired, he cries as he sings ba-bye, but more often than not, he just belts it out Mary Poppins style. They say parting is such sweet sorrow, but around here, Finny will willingly bid you adieu if he knows it’s something new for him to sing about. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up on the front stoop, rather than on a pile of towels with poor, plastic Bullstrode.

*To see Finny saying Goodbye to his milkshake after a bath, click on the link below.  Notice, he forgets who he is saying ba-bye to halfway through and starts to say goodbye to Tissa again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByOdUlOpDYw