June 18, 2001 - Monday
I stopped by the local grocery store with Harry this morning on the way to daycare to pick up a few items, including milk. I wasn't going to get orange juice, but it was right there by the milk and when Harry saw it he let out his now familiar yell of "O.J!"

Almost every morning toward the end of breakfast for the last couple weeks, Harry has taken up the call for orange juice. Well, he's not really calling for O.J. itself, because he very rarely actually drinks it. He just thinks it's funny to yell about the O.J. as I get up to pour myself a glass after a bowl of cereal. I'm don't remember quite how this started, but I have a pretty good idea. I suspect there was a morning when Harry was a little antsy about being in his chair or otherwise slightly out of sorts and I needed to distract him for a minute or two while I cleaned up my breakfast dishes. I probably was giving him the walking narrative of my actions - I've gotten better at that, I think - and probably gave a little extra thrill to my otherwise mundane pursuit of a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator.

I don't know whether the back and forth yelling and the arm raising started that first time, or whether it was a slow buildup over the course of several days, but there are mornings now when I'll be at the refrigerator and Harry will be at the table and we'll both be yelling "O.JAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" as loud as we can each thrusting both arms in the air as if our team had just scored the winning goal in final round of the play-offs. I suppose the difference is that we both think it's very funny and are also laughing through the whole thing.

[Interestingly, O.J. has also clearly become a color to Harry and not just the beverage. He has an orange ball that goes with his Pound-a-Ball that he now calls O.J. as well. It's kind of a difficult concept I suppose - the fruit orange, the color orange - so we'll have to work on that.]

Harry's mother usually takes Harry to the grocery store on Saturday mornings and, just this past Saturday, came home saying Harry had made a big scene when they passed the orange juice in the store. This morning, Harry didn't cry out about the O.J at the top of his lungs, but it was certainly loud enough to get the attention of the employee stocking shelves nearby. The good news is that Harry had pointed out that O.J. was on sale this week. So, we bought some.


Comments, opinions?