Jack Tame: My son's obsession

There’s construction a couple of streets down from our place. The hi-vis crew are digging up a road. And though usually it’d be little more than a brief, passing inconvenience, at our place this week it’s been cause for a lot more excitement.    My 18-month-old son is slowly building his vocabulary. He can’t yet say “Mum” or “mumma,” but the moment we turned the corner and spied the orange road cones a few hundred metres away, he was straining on his push chair seat belt.    “DIG-GAH! DIG-GAH!”   There was no chance it was a fluke. Apparently, kids find the ‘D’ sound relatively easy to make and ‘D’ words are often some of the first they can articulate. My boy started with ‘dog’ and ‘Dadda,’ and for the first few ‘diggahs’ I wasn’t totally sure if he knew what he was actually saying.    There was a moment of clarity one morning as I was walking across Western Springs when he blurted it out —“DIG-GAH”— and I gently corrected him.    “No! That’s a duck. You’re a silly duffer,” I said.   Then as my eyes shifted focus, right in the far distance, hundreds of metres away in a gap between a few tree branches, I saw the familiar yellow arm of a mid-sized Komatsu excavator, waiting to dig up the Western Springs turf.    “Oh,” I said.   “Sorry. DIG-GAH.”   It’s become increasingly obvious he’s absolutely fixated on heavy vehicles.    It feels like we read ‘The Little Yellow Digger’ 10 or 12 times a day. We’re constantly refreshing the rest of our digger-related literature at the local library, and his digger matchbox toy comes everywhere.    What is it? What’s the attraction? My theory —the Jack Tame theory of paediatric neurology which isn’t necessarily informed by actual science— is that we human beings more or less wired the same as were 50,000 years ago. And 50,000 years ago, roaming a savanna, you would never have encountered something as big and colourful and powerful as a DIGGAH.     It’s funny, isn’t it? The old nature-nurture. It’s not like every little boy loves diggers and every little girl loves dolls and playing shop, and that there isn’t a whole heap of crossover. But even if you don’t put your thumb on the scale as a parent, your kids are gonna like what they’re gonna like. And in my limited experience, the boys have very much deferred to the boy cliches.    My wife actually thought that among his cars and blocks and Duplo, our son should have a baby doll among his toys to play with as well. I reckon he’s picked it up about 3 times in the last year, and each of those has been to throw it across the room. So far at least, he doesn’t want to play with his baby. He wants ‘DIG-GAH.’    At 1.42am this morning my son stirred in his bed. He cried and I went in and gently comforted him, kissing him on his cheek and rubbing his back. And he curled up and relaxed into sleep, he gently mouthed a word under his sweet breath.    “Dig-gah.”  Four hours later, as if picking up where he’d left off, he started babbling in his cot and fussing to get up for breakfast. As I groaned and rubbed my eyes and dragged myself from slumber, the noise from his bedroom quieted for a moment. Maybe, I thought, maybe he’s dozed off for another half an hour’s sleep.   Then I heard it. Clear as a day. Ringing down the corridor and across the neighbourhood.  “DIGGGGG-GAH!” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.