Conversations With a 3-Year-Old

This post is of course nothing more than a blatant excuse to recount some of the more amusing utterances we've heard from the Doozer of late. And these are actual conversations now. Still a bit lopsided and one-sided on occasion, but the art of conversation is slowly but surely being grasped by our son. He's picking stuff up. He's mimicking the way the wife and I speak. And he's begun asking questions.

I don't think you really understand. It never occurred to me that the "Why" phase might start this early, but it has. In earnest. The constant stream of questions sometimes makes me feel like a perp being interrogated by a hardened police detective intent on ferreting out the truth. It's like the Spanish Inquisition in our house. And nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition.

When a Google image search for ghosts (because Halloween is just around the corner) turns up several shots of the character Ghost Rider, complete with flaming skull and intimidating motorcycle, try explaining to a toddler why his head is completely engulfed in flames.

No really, try.

And since it's Halloween, the Doozer is back on gargoyles. Yes, gargoyles. Looking at an image of one sitting atop Notre Dame in Paris, he asks, "What is that gargoyle doing?" I don't even know how to begin trying to answer that. What does a gargoyle do exactly? How would you describe that?

The Doozer is just a sponge, and it's impossible to keep up with all the references. Seriously, talking to him is like being in a Quentin Tarantino movie. He just absorbs everything (from real life and TV and books and music) and he's filtering it through his own particular worldview and coming back at you with it. You just have to sit there and marvel at what comes out of his mouth.

Sitting in our bed one lazy Sunday morning, trying to get the wife and I in gear to go downstairs so he can have his juice and watch some Curious George, the Doozer looks at the two of us and asks, "Well, fellows. What do you think we should do now?" We can't help but collapse (okay, so we were already lying down) into fits of laughter. Where did that come from? How does he know the word fellows? And how does he know how to use it correctly? Or mostly correctly?

But I think our recent personal favorite was the question he asked when he heard that the father of one of his preschool classmates was out of town, that he was, in fact, in a place called Budapest, the Doozer asked with utmost sincerity, "Do they have Buddhas there?" Longtime readers might recall our son's earlier preoccupation with two miniature Buddha statues in our house—and their penchant for Italian cuisine.

He's peppering his speech with words like familiar. And ridiculous. After visiting me at work, he looked back at the office building and said, "Your office is a very interesting place." Yes, I suppose that it is.

I'm sure someday he's not going to want to talk to me at all, so I should really enjoy this while it lasts.