The Puwoah

"Daddy, whewe's the puwoah?" Michael asked me.

"Puwoah?" I repeated, hoping to gain insight by saying the word myself. But to no avail.

"Yes, the puwoah," he repeated. Evidently he hoped I would gain insight if he repeated it, but still nothing came to me.

Our beloved housemate, Karen, happened to be in the room at the time, and since she also happens to have a gift for decoding the speech of young children, I looked at her, hoping for enlightenment. But she shrugged helplessly.

"You know, the puwoah!" Michael said, frustration building.

"Puwoah, puwoah," I said to myself. Sometimes I have better luck by eliciting more information. "What does it do?"

"It's a sip. You know, the bwack puwoah!" Clearly something everyone knows.

Suddenly, at the same time, Karen and I looked at each other. "The Black Pearl!" we said, simultaneously. Captain Jack's ship, always good for an adventure, though in this case, an adventure in early childhood linguistics.

Limerick by Susanna: Disappearing Ink

There once was a girl named Pink
Who used disappearing ink.
Got poked with her quill,
Which made a big spill,
And then she was gone in a blink.

Confess: A Limerick by Susanna

My daughter wrote this limerick, unaided, for a fourth-grade class assignment.

There once was a girl named Bess
Who didn't like to confess.
What happened to her
No one knew for sure.
Would you like to take a guess?

The Mystery Container

"I got the Mystewy Containew!" Michael will shout on occasion, when I pick him up from preschool. Each child gets a turn in the rotation to take the container home and bring it back the next day with something in it. The child gives the class three clues and they see if anyone can guess what it is.

Earlier in the year, Michael had generated a typical set of clues. "It's brown and has a tail, it swings through trees, and it eats bananas."

But recently he's become more crafty. See if you can guess the object from one of my favorite set of clues:
1. You can't drive it.
2. It doesn't have wheels.
3. But you can read it!

Gotta Hand It To Ya

"Michael, please take your things into the house," I said as we climbed out of the car, my arms already laden with water bottles, shoes, and a pile of school art, papers occasionally fluttering to the ground.

"I onwy have two hands," he said, as he grappled with three items. Last month he had pointed out, "You onwy have two hands, too. Because in ouw famiwy, we onwy have two hands."

Now he was waxing philosophical. "What if we had six hands?" He likes to speculate, and the more ridiculous, the better.

"What if we had six hands?" I asked.

Nate pitched in. "If we had six hands, we could do lots of things," he said.

"Like what?" I pressed.

"Like we wouldn't have to use our mouths to carry things."

Silver Linings

"I see bwack and white cwouds," Michael said, as we climbed into the car, the two boys and me.

I put it into gear and looked at the mottled sky. "You're right," I agreed.

"Wain comes fwom the bwack cwouds, but not the white cwouds," he said. I had pointed out a few weeks ago that I thought it would rain because the clouds looked pretty dark. Now he was refining the concept one point further. "God makes it wain fwom the bwack cwouds."

Nathan was thoughtful. "They're only shadows," he said. "The black clouds are the ones that make it rain, but they're only shadows. They have too much water in them, so then they rain."

It surprises me how much a three-year-old and five-year-old think things through. I'd never thought about why some clouds were bright and some dark. "I think you're right," I said. "The sun can't shine through those clouds because there's more water in them." I suppose water vapor can vary widely in density. "How did you know that?" I asked, always curious about their sources.

"I don't know. I just knew it," he said.

These boys. I learn so much from them. What will happen when they're teens?

Quote of the Morning

“I’m king. Whoever eats not their food gets a bagel. That’s what my command.” --Michael, this morning, looking at his plate of chicken, rice, applesauce and carrots from last night's dinner.

I stirred, groggy. Mike had climbed onto Jen and me, still lying in bed, a full thirty minutes before we had to be up.

Now he was practically standing on us, and declared, "The greatest King of all is..."

I waited to hear the pronouncement from the 3-year-old's perspective.

"...me!"

Then he proceeded with his traditional activity of trying to squeeze in between the two of us. "King Mikey is going to squooze fwoo!" (Which is, of course, his way of saying "squeeze through.") King Mikey is going to squooze fwoo!"

It only too about ten iterations before he successfully wedged between us. Just another typical morning at the Ball household.

"The B-I-B-L-E,

Yes, that's the book for me,"

sang the loudest three-year-old in the house.

"I still don't know

The Word of God,

The B-I-B-L-E!"

Jen and I looked at each other and had to laugh. "Sing it for Karen!" we requested.

So he launched in again. Sure enough, instead of singing the original, "I stand alone on the word of God," Michael substituted his own words. 

He still doesn't know 

the words to the song, 

the B-I-B-L-E.

Identity Issues

Thursday was Nathan's adoption day, commemorating the day we officially adopted him five years ago. We like to celebrate by having a few close friends over and eating a meal including foods celebrating the particular child's ethnic heritage. 

"What kind of food do you want to have, Nathan?" his mom asked. "You're part Mexican, part African American, part Puerto Rican..."

"I think I'd like Orange Chicken, please, because I'm half Chinese."

Does the fact that our housemate, Karen, is Chinese, make Nathan half Chinese? Or because we are what we eat?

The same day, Michael's preschool class was discussing nicknames. "And do you have a nickname, Michael?" asked his teacher.

"My nickname is Michael 'Goof' Ball," he replied. Case closed.

Favorite Color

A couple months ago, our three-year-old was playing with our housemate, Karen. Michael unexepectedly jumped from a low wall he had been climbing, and she was unable to catch him. Instead, he landed on her foot and simultanously knocked her down. My guess is that falling on her foot is what fractured the bone, and knocking her over is what tore three ligaments. 

It swelled to enormous size the next day, and turned purple. She was babysitting Mike, so she just took him along to see the doctor.

While they waited, he inspected her foot. "Hey, Kawen, it's puwpwe!" 

"Yes, it is purple," she answered.

"Hey--puwpwe is youw favowite cowow!" (Yes, he really talks like Tweety Bird.)

"Yes, purple is my favorite color." (Karen's very good at translating.)

"Kawen, if youws favowite cowow was owange, would youws foot be owange?"

"No, my foot wouldn't be orange, even if that was my favorite color."

"If youws favowite cowow was bwue, would youws foot be bwue?"

After about five colors, she couldn't see the end of the rainbow in sight, so she had to explain that no, it doesn't work that way.

As a parent, I think back on the whole incident grateful that at least my boy knows his colors.