Genesis 2:19

... and whatever [Celeste] called each [toy], that was its name.

At the risk of being a bit blasphemous on my part, Celeste is channeling Adam, bestowing names on her toys and deeming it good. A while ago, she told us that the teddy bear she sleeps with's name is Dee-Dee, but last week we found out that one of the teddy bears that lives downstairs is named Tim (apparently, named after the best friend bear in Celeste: A Day in the Park and her bathtime penguin is Dave.

Actually, Dave is a sippy cup, a Mumsa sippy cup we picked up at Ikea when she was just a few months old. It's never been a very good sippy cup, but it makes a nice bath toy. Celeste likes pouring water from it, insisting that we help unscrew his head, and putting the cup portion on her feet. At some point, I started calling it Dave Penguin Head and apparently it stuck.

[POINTLESS ASIDE:The name "Dave Penguin Head" doesn't really reflect the cup's Swedish heritage, but penguins aren't native to Sweden anyway — Norway claims part of Antarctica, so it might be able to claim native penguins, but Sweden is a non-claimant nation — so the poor thing would be confused no mater what ...]

Here's the hard thing to figure out. I'm not sure if "Dave" has become generalized as a name for all penguins or not. Tonight, when I got home, Celeste was reading Baby Animal Kisses and when she got to the "feathery penguin kisses" page, she started pointing and saying "Dave! Dave!" Maybe she's saying that particular penguin IS Dave, or that these are penguins like Dave is, or maybe dave = penguin.

The other thing about Dave, since Celeste prefers to play with the two parts of the cup separated, I find myself thinking up stupid little ditties during bathtime like "Dave, Dave Penguin Head. Orcas like to eat him dead." I try to stop myself, but the rhymes always seem to turn out badly for Dave.

Tonight, I let the above verse slip out of my head, and as soon as I sang it, Celeste started making the "Numm, numm, numm" noise she uses when she's offering part of her lunch to one of her toy animals ...

Technorati tags: name penguin