The first noise Tot ever made that had a distinct meaning, his second week out of the womb, was the "milk monster" sound. He made it -- and still makes it -- when he was hungry and within reach of my breast, and its meaning was clear from the first moment I heard it: MILK. WANT MILK. Although he's greatly expanded his repetoire of sounds since then, the milk monster sound and its meaning remain consistent.

It's a sort of gutteral grunting or rough breathing deep in his throat. "Huhhnn, huuuhhhnnn." The noise of a creature with one thing only on his mind. It is utterly hilarious to hear, this voice of a ravenous beast coming out of that sweet chubby wide-eyed face.

"Who's a little milk monster then?" I asked Jeremiah, looking down at him. His gaze was focused intently on a point several inches below my own face. (All too many inches below, these days, alas.)

His grunting increased in volume, began to take on a ragged, urgent edge.

"Huuhhn, huhhnn, huuUHHNN!"

"Milk monster!" shouted Pär from within my office-née-closet.

I unbuttoned my shirt and began to feed the baby, who immediately subsided into contented bliss.

"You know what he sounds like when he's a milk monster?" I called to Pär, who emerged and came over to talk. "He sounds exactly like the Feral Kid."

"He does!" exclaimed Pär. We grinned at each other for a moment.

You have to understand that this was a happy discovery for us. We'd watched Mad Max II: The Road Warrior once while I was pregnant, and had agreed not only that the Feral Kid was the best thing about the movie, but that it would be fun if Tot (sex as yet unknown) turned out to be just like him. The way some parents dream their children will become doctors or lawyers, Pär and I dreamed of our child becoming a Feral Kid.

("Only with better dental work," I had amended.)

And here our boy was, expressing himself in perfect Feralkidspeak.

"Feral Tot," I said, fondly.

"You know he probably won't really become a Feral Kid," Pär pointed out gently. "Not without a nuclear holocaust and the total breakdown of society and everything to shape him."

"I know," I said. "It's for the best, really. He's cute this way, but if he started actually killing people with boomerangs and stuff, it would stop being so cute, after a while."

Pär nodded. "Besides, eventually he'd grow up to be Feral Man, which would be disturbing."

"Oh," I said, "good point. Feral Man, not pretty."

"And then," continued Pär, "he'd become Feral Geezer! And that would just be scary."

I winced at the image. We looked down at the peacefully suckling baby.

"Maybe we'll just dress him up in little leather scraps sometimes and leave it at that."