Chat Hat, Chat Hat

"Chat Hat! Chat Hat."

It sounds like a foreign language, and I guess it is. But it's one I'm slowly becoming fluent in.

The phrase means: The Cat in the Hat. You know, the children's book by Dr. Seuss.

I don't know why -- I don't need to know why -- but that's how Leo pronounces the book's title. Chat -- the French word for cat, which he would never have heard from me. And then the word hat, which he knows.

He loves certain sentences from the book. For example, the sentence where the Cat says, “We have can have fun that is funny.” He shouts “Funny!” He sort of stammers it, like he's having trouble containing himself, that's how entertaining he finds the phrase.

He also likes his Bob the Builder book. And he picks up the book and says one word over and over: “Bob.” He says it so sweetly, as if Bob were our friend, our neighbor, someone we know well.

I'm recording him often but not often enough. You'd simply have to press "on" every morning and every evening.

Which is probably not possible. But I hope my brain is recording it. All of it. Every little second.