The past few weeks have seen The Sprite's vocabulary increase at an impressive rate. He is stringing small sentences together, he's somewhat comprehendible and working the word 'actually' into almost every phrase.
"Shall we wear the red t-shirt today?"
"Yes, red t-shirt, uh, it's actually green"
"No, it's red. It'd your red shirt with the drums on"
"No it's not drums, it's actually green"
"Okay sunshine whatever you say, green it is"
"No, it's not sunshine, sunshine is actually outside"
"Alright, now you're just being a smart-arse"
"It's not smart-arse daddy. Thats not a good example of the language one should use in front of a toddler. A better example would be smart-alec. Actually"
As you can see from the accurately recreated discussion with The Sprite from this evening, he is also becoming quite contrary. We say black, he says white. Or green. It is usually quite amusing, because we never know quite what he is going to contradict us with. The words he chooses to substitute with are plucked randomly from his ever expanding dictionary. He has his favorites of course. His staples he can fall back on.
"It's balloons"
"It's airplane"
"It's helicopter"
"It's inconsequential"
But this contradictory discussion usually means that the briefest of instructions turns into a college-length debate. Compounded with his toddler-native attention deficit, a simple act of leaving the house and getting into the car can take several hours of distracted allusions.
Communication is God's gift to Man, and Man's gift to advertising, and the Devil's gift to parents. And The Sprite is enjoying his new-found skills of communicating just about every random thought that passes through his cortex. Returning from a family trip to the beach this weekend, I was strapping the young Master into his car-seat, when he informs me, "It's okay, I don't want the telescope".
"Right-o kid. We'll hold off on that one then shall we"
In fairness to His Wordliness, the telescope reference stemmed from an earlier encounter on the beach. There was a gentleman parasailing on his beach skateboard of some kind. It looked like quite a lot of fun, and The Sprite and I watched him ride up and down the beach for at least 30 minutes. In fact, Master-G insisted we "go take a look" which meant I carry him up and down the beach after the parasailing dude, who must have thought we were retarded freako's. Or at least I was a retarded freako carrying an attention-deficited toddler.
Anyhow, after we went and took a look, and I told him the huge thing flying through the air was a parachute, he began to repeat the word.
"I want parachute"
"Sure, when you're older"
"I want parachute, when you're older, I have to wait"
"That's right, you can get a parachute when you're older"
"Lets go look at telechute..."
Huh, WTF. What is this telechute you speak of? Because forgive me if I'm wrong, but unless I'm very much mistaken we were just discussing a PARAchute. And so the telechute was born. A bastard word of toddler origin. Which explains the reference to a telescope later that day. But it doesn't explain why that particular word was plucked for delivery at that particular moment. The toddler brain must be churning and swirling in a developmental froth at such an alarming rate that thoughts and words and ideas cascade in and out of consciousness in a seemingly random fashion. Now if only I could regain some of that mental energy. Most thoughts of mine these days reluctantly drag themselves into sentience as if I were squeezing out the most constipated turd, in desperate need of cerebral Metamusil.
"Shall we wear the red t-shirt today?"
"Yes, red t-shirt, uh, it's actually green"
"No, it's red. It'd your red shirt with the drums on"
"No it's not drums, it's actually green"
"Okay sunshine whatever you say, green it is"
"No, it's not sunshine, sunshine is actually outside"
"Alright, now you're just being a smart-arse"
"It's not smart-arse daddy. Thats not a good example of the language one should use in front of a toddler. A better example would be smart-alec. Actually"
As you can see from the accurately recreated discussion with The Sprite from this evening, he is also becoming quite contrary. We say black, he says white. Or green. It is usually quite amusing, because we never know quite what he is going to contradict us with. The words he chooses to substitute with are plucked randomly from his ever expanding dictionary. He has his favorites of course. His staples he can fall back on.
"It's balloons"
"It's airplane"
"It's helicopter"
"It's inconsequential"
But this contradictory discussion usually means that the briefest of instructions turns into a college-length debate. Compounded with his toddler-native attention deficit, a simple act of leaving the house and getting into the car can take several hours of distracted allusions.
Communication is God's gift to Man, and Man's gift to advertising, and the Devil's gift to parents. And The Sprite is enjoying his new-found skills of communicating just about every random thought that passes through his cortex. Returning from a family trip to the beach this weekend, I was strapping the young Master into his car-seat, when he informs me, "It's okay, I don't want the telescope".
"Right-o kid. We'll hold off on that one then shall we"
In fairness to His Wordliness, the telescope reference stemmed from an earlier encounter on the beach. There was a gentleman parasailing on his beach skateboard of some kind. It looked like quite a lot of fun, and The Sprite and I watched him ride up and down the beach for at least 30 minutes. In fact, Master-G insisted we "go take a look" which meant I carry him up and down the beach after the parasailing dude, who must have thought we were retarded freako's. Or at least I was a retarded freako carrying an attention-deficited toddler.
Anyhow, after we went and took a look, and I told him the huge thing flying through the air was a parachute, he began to repeat the word.
"I want parachute"
"Sure, when you're older"
"I want parachute, when you're older, I have to wait"
"That's right, you can get a parachute when you're older"
"Lets go look at telechute..."
Huh, WTF. What is this telechute you speak of? Because forgive me if I'm wrong, but unless I'm very much mistaken we were just discussing a PARAchute. And so the telechute was born. A bastard word of toddler origin. Which explains the reference to a telescope later that day. But it doesn't explain why that particular word was plucked for delivery at that particular moment. The toddler brain must be churning and swirling in a developmental froth at such an alarming rate that thoughts and words and ideas cascade in and out of consciousness in a seemingly random fashion. Now if only I could regain some of that mental energy. Most thoughts of mine these days reluctantly drag themselves into sentience as if I were squeezing out the most constipated turd, in desperate need of cerebral Metamusil.
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