Da-isms

Our three-year-old, Little Da, grows apace. Still wobbly on the potty training but excited as any man would be about peeing while standing up. Something about taking that aim, I guess. He also is an opinionated little fellow with many pithy observations to make about the world. Below, a few.

We're going to church. I have some new, fairly unoffensive black flats in ballet shoe style that I put on. I come downstairs and encounter Little, who stares at my feet for a good 10 seconds before pointing at my shoes. "What are those?" he asks in evident disbelief. "My shoes," I answer, stating the obvious. "Take them off," he orders. "I don't like them." It appears that I live with Jimmy Choo.

He's tautological, as many a three-year-old can be. Me: "Why did you get up from the table if you weren't finished eating?" Him: "Because I did." Me: "Why did you whack your brother with the sword?" Him: "Because I did hit him with it." Me: "Why did you turn the TV on when we said, 'no'?" Him: "Because I did turn it on." Sigh. I also live with George Mallory, the guy who climbed Mt. Everest "because it is there."

As with most youngest siblings and any self-respecting three-year-old, our Da takes offense easily. "He did hit me!" "Why did he hit you?" "Because he did!" "Did you hit him?" "Yes. With a sword!" And then there's, "(Dubya) did say that he is mad at me!" "Why is he mad at you?" "Because he did say he is!" And the assumed ability to admonish a parent who has told him "no," responding in low firm tones: "Don't say that to me, Mama!" We have intense discussions about the appropriateness of this last. I also appear to live with a blossoming, autocratic Prince of Wales.

Every morning at school, he dramatizes his arrival and my departure by throwing himself on the floor in a heap. It's all show now, little in the way of real tears or unhappiness. By all accounts and my own observation through the window, he's up in about 1.5 seconds, joining his "best buddies" at the home center. But sometimes, I'll pick him up from school, and this is when I encounter something I've never encountered before in my other children, boys who seem to lack the ability to be manipulative. Not Little Da. We get in the car, I buckle him in. "I did cwy today when you left me at school," he informs me. "I did cwy for a long time." I'd be heartbroken and concerned if I hadn't watched him through that window pick himself up off the floor and toddle over to his friends to play faster than it took me to type this. If his teachers didn't report that he has a great time the entire day. "You were sad?" I nevertheless say, sympathetically. "Yes," he responds, executing a perfect Little Rascals pout. "I was sad because I was sad and I did cwying." My very own little Russell Crowe, passionate outbursts and all.

The child would not, however, be a true member of the DMFPs if he didn't engage in catastrophic thinking related to That Which Can Eat You. Which is why, this morning, on the way to school, he informed me, apropos of nothing, "If a shark bites you, you have to go to the doctor." Now that's a true member of the DMFP clan.