Day 875 - "Cat!"

Have you ever been a victim of subliminal advertising? Just in case anyone is unaware of what subliminal advertising is, it's the use by advertisers of images and sounds to influence consumers' responses without their being conscious of it. In other words, it's a subtle advertisement trying not to be too obvious.

For example, think about the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo. Did you even know it's there? Another example would be the smile/arrow in the Amazon logo drawing a line from A to Z. In other words, you can find anything you want at Amazon. One of my favorite logos with hidden meaning is the Milwaukee Brewers logo. It's amazing in its simplistic nature as it not only conveys that the Brewers are a baseball team but it also reinforces where the team is located due to the hidden "MB".

Over the last week of so, Ethan has embarked on his own form of subliminal advertising around the Holt household. The difference is that he's so good at it that he doesn't even realize that he's making me really want the product he's trying to sell. Confused yet? Good.

Part of Ethan's newfound sales prowess comes from his burgeoning ability to speak. Over the past month, Ethan's vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds. It started out simply enough with old favorites like "Mama", "Dada", "bye-bye", and "night-night". From there, it expanded even further. We now find ourselves hearing things like "cracker", "milk", "more", "remote", "bike", and my new personal favorite, "cucumber". Really, what kind of one-year-old learns the word, "cucumber"? For the record, there are a multitude of others but you get the point. There is one additional word that bears mentioning though. That word is "cat".

It started out simply enough. Anytime we would work our way through some of his favorite books, Ethan would excitedly point out whenever he saw a cat or what might be a cat on the page. After he received continual praise from us for doing so, I think he decided to chase after that feeling. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, he will pick up certain books, walk over to us, open to a certain page, and proudly point to a picture of an animal while exclaiming "Cat!". Sometimes it really is a cat. Other times it's not.

"Cat...Shaq...Cat...Shaq..."

From there, the cries of "Cat" continued to escalate, moving from books and pictures to anything he might see in real life. So far, Ethan has referred to cows, dogs, birds, and even a bunny as a cat. Despite our best attempts to correct him, he will always respond with an enthusiastic cry of "Cat!". Oddly enough, I don't think Ethan has actually met a cat at this stage of his life. When the time comes, would he call it a cat or would he ironically refer to it as a dog. Who knows?

One thing is certain throughout the process of teaching Ethan different words for animals. The sheer amount of times I have heard "Cat" has now resulted in me really, really wanting a pet cat. Thus far the attempts to sell Bethany on the idea have not ended in success. I'll let you know if anything changes though. #DaddyWrite

**sigh** At least he's cute.