My funny, funny little guy

Here at Haus Grothoff, we have a little red squirrel friend who likes to climb up the wall of the apartment building that’s about two meters from our house and sit on a window ledge watching us eat breakfast.

Usually I point him out to Torsten, who watches him quietly as he eats, and then the squirrel disappears and we’re done with it.

This morning, however, Torsten decided to make his feelings about the squirrel known. I had no idea…

Me: Torsten! Look, it’s the squirrel!
Torsten (to squirrel, emphatically): Bye bye. Down. Go down.

(Squirrel eventually goes down the wall. Torsten returns to playing with a piece of banana, possibly calculating angles of trajectory.)

A bit later, as Torsten moved on to his toast:

Me: Hey Torsten, look, the squirrel is back…
Torsten: Squirrel? (Or, more correctly, “sco?”)
Me: Yeah, the squirrel is back.
Torsten: Bye BYE. Go go go go go. Squirrel go.

(Squirrel climbs up the wall out of sight, and Torsten watches carefully, keeping an eye out to see if it comes back down. Clearly, he knows the rodent cannot be trusted and he means most emphatically to protect us all from Squirrel Doom ™).

A few minutes later, Torsten is done, out of the high chair, facing the squirrel window, and I am holding him on my shoulder while putting his pants on (because, quite frankly, this kid isn’t going to lie down for anything these days…):

Torsten: SQUIRREL! Bye bye. Go squirrel. Squirrel go. Go go go go go. Squirrel go down. BYE BYE!

Yes, I know, not interesting for any of you, but this is the longest sustained and comprehensible utterance on a theme I’ve ever heard out of my almost-18-month-old, and it was really, really funny, especially since I’ve never heard him tell anyone or anything to go away, though he does do an emphatic “bye BYE!” when he’s decided it’s time for him to leave and go somewhere.

He really doesn’t like being watched by that squirrel, I guess Damned voyeuristic foragers.

Can’t really blame the squirrel though. Torsten is cute…