Saturday, August 09, 2008

Misty & China

You have to love little children – they are so inquisitive and adorable.

This past week, Thane’s new speech therapist sent a note home suggesting we work on “he/she” with Thane, and on having him use more precise descriptive language – not letting him get away with “I want something” while we try to guess what, but have him say, “I want the apple juice.”

I laughed about the he/she stuff and told his teacher we have been doing that for ages. That is when she told me the girls have nothing story below.

So a little while ago he came running in to check if I have lips (which automatically makes me think of Larry Boy from Veggie Tales). We confirmed I have lips, he has lips, and Dave has lips. He decided Misty, the dog, didn’t. I said she did, but hers are black. So he leaned down and corrected himself, saying “Yes, He has lips.”

Being the parent who tries to do the things therapists ask, I corrected him and said “Misty is a girl.”

“No, he’s dawg!” (For some reason Thane says “dog” with a Brooklyn accent. We joke it must be inbred, even though I don’t have one even though I was born in Kings County Hospital where they let people in the psych waiting room die on the floor and leave them there for an hour.)

“Yes, she is a dog, but she is a girl dog,” I replied.

“No, he’s a brother.”

“She’s a sister dog,” I said, but then the light bulb went off inside my mind and I added, “She doesn’t have a penis, she’s a girl.”

Well, I was right that it would make a different for him.

“Oh, she has a . . . a . . . poopie . . . a . . . what?” I had to laugh a bit because he has always been bothered by the fact that she has black skin at her anus, though her fur is bright white back there.

I said, “She has a vagina. She’s a girl.”

“That’s right! She has a China! I have to go tell Daddy that Misty is a girl so she has a China!”

We have a long house. He had to go through the foyer, through the living room, all the way through the disaster we call a kitchen, past the bathroom, and to the sunroom.

“Daddy, Misty’s from China! She has to go there to visit her family.”

I was expecting Dave to come out laughing about Misty having a China, but I waited a few minutes and nothing. I called him on the intercom and asked him if he thought it was funny that Mist had a China. He explained that the story he got was that she was from China, so she needed to go visit her family there.

I love the way the story was adapted on his way through the house!

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