Don't crack your coconut

When Kent was a little boy, his grandfather would tell him that when he started roughhousing around. Now we say it to each other whenever one of us bonks our heads. And yesterday I used it with my nephew.

Schuler is three years old, and pretty articulate for his age (for example: he says yes very carefully and doesn’t say yeah). Last night he made a catalog for me of all his various owies and not two minutes later, he bonked his head on a piece of furniture. So I said “Careful! You don’t want to crack your coconut!” He latched on to that phrase like crazy. He told me probably seven times that he didn’t have a coconut, and he hadn’t cracked it anyway. Then he decided he bumped his coconut. I’m doing a really poor job conveying his earnestness and how very serious he was in telling me all about his head.

Well about an hour later, he and his sister Rayna completely bonked heads together. I mean it was probably a stars-inducing head bonk. They both had tears in their eyes and then he told me with quivering lips that maybe he’d cracked his coconut. My sister and I giggled over how he said that most of the night. We'll see if he's still concerned about his coconut today.