Big Words and Young Logic

A few weeks ago, Ethan’s Puggles teacher at church told me how much he enjoys having Ethan in the class, namely because he can communicate almost twice as good as any of the other two-year-olds. After being assured he wasn’t chattering when he needed to be quiet in class, I agreed he does speak very well with a rather exhaustive vocabulary for a tiny kid who is still four months away from being three. In fact, sometimes he speaks better than the three-year-olds in Cubbies!

Ethan has always communicated well. He learned to speak at a very early age, and he picks up words the moment he hears them.  I’m not sure what that tends toward in his future, but I think he has done so because he feels he has to respond to Emry. I shouldn’t be surprised when he runs up to me in the midst of some game Emry has roped him into and declares with big eyes, “Mama, don’t! It’s dangerous!” But sometimes the big words he uses do astound me. One of his favorite books isLittle Blue Truck’s Springtime.I feel like we’ve read it every day before naptime for the past month. On the last page, it drives him crazy that one of the little piglets is on one page and not on the other nine on the other page. The other day, he pointed at that pig and said in exasperation, “That piggy is supposed to be over there.” 

And two-year-olds aren’t supposedto use the word supposed.

Today after spending an hour at one of the indoor play areas at the local mega-church, we had a special lunch with Mom at IHop instead of the usual Chick-fil-a or McDonalds. The kids had never been there and Emry thought the name of the place was fun. I tried to explain to her that it stood for International House of Pancakes, but she apparently didn’t understand because as we were leaving the restaurant, she stopped, looked carefully at the building and then asked, “Mama, where is the bunny?” 

“Bunny?” I echoed wonderingly, but it quickly came to me. I Hop. Surely that means a bunny, right?

I laughed and tried to explain the whole acronym thing again, but I’m sure it went over her head. Thankfully she did accept the fact that the restaurant simply does not have a bunny.