My oldest daughter told me that she heard her biological clock ticking and I told her that I was too young and cool to be called Grampa. In the tradition of my family — a tradition started by my sister — I came up with my own grandparent name: “Cool Papa.” My first two grandchildren mastered the three-syllable honorific with little problem. I can still remember my three-year-old grandson Xavion, echoing his mother and telling me, “You’re crazy, Cool Papa.” He also helped his sister Imani, four years younger, to accept her “Cool Papa.” When they were 14 and 10 years old, their aunt gave them a cousin, and now, at two years old, Myah lives with Cool Papa, and calls him “Clop.”
I have been the weekday caretaker for Myah since she was 5 months old. I have spoken to her, sung to her, played music for her and prammed her about Irvington, saying “Hi” to the birds and people we pass. I’ve also listened to her verbal development, and the 2.4 version has a daily-changing grasp of the language her grandfather loves. When asked if she needs her diaper changed, Myah will respond, “No; I’m fine.” After a rain, when she and her mother go into the yard, Myah will call out, “Worms! (Where) are you?” She will identify “two shoes,” and say that she wants to “sit chair,” so that she can “eat, eat.” When ads interrupt her YouTube videos of dinosaurs, she will cry out to me to “fix it!” She backs up to me in my chair with a book in her hand, and commands me to “read.” When she has finished the food that she likes on her plate, she will say, “more”; I have encouraged her to say, “more, please,” and she will. She can identify “baby shark, mommy shark and daddy shark,” and add the eternally irritating soundtrack: “doo doo de doo doo.” And when it is time for her to pick up a few of the 61,000 toys she has, she sing-songs what her mother has taught her: “Clean up, clean up.” When asked for the location of her “bink,” Myah will look around and exclaim, “there it is!” She will pull my shoes from the rack and say, “try it,” put them on and say, “better!” She will come running from her room with a toy she likes, saying “I find it!” When I ask her where she found it, she will cry, “toys!”
When coached, Myah can say, “Cool,” and “Pop” with no problem. But when asked to say, “Cool Pop,” she drops two vowels and a consonant and comes up with “Clop.” My daughters find this hilarious and have invented a whole series of catchphrases to exploit my granddaughter’s unintentional nickname for me.
Dr. Seuss has “Hop on Pop;” Lisa and Lauren have “Hop on Clop.” When excited, you “clop” your hands; Lauren will “clop” in the shower in the morning, but before she leaves for work, she will lay out several clothing “cloptions” for Myah. She expects Myah to “cloperate” with me, and claims that we will listen to “Johann Sebastian Clop” on radio station WSIE. These insults are only limited by their imaginations, but there is this: When Myah wakes in the morning, she calls out, “Clop! Clop!” and if I do not respond quickly enough, she two-syllables me: “Cuh-LOPP!” As we navigate the day, Myah wants me to “fix it, Clop,” or go “(down) stairs, Clop,” or go “outside, Clop.”
Her mother and aunt may mock me, but I don’t care; I’m proud to be Myah’s “Clop.”
cjon3acd@att.net