Can you tell me?

One of your big rhetorical strategies is now "can you tell me?" 

"What's this?" you'll say, pointing to something in a book.

"What do you think it is?" I say.

"Can you tell me?" you insist. 

"I can, but I'm curious what you think it is," I say.

"I want you to tell me," you say. 

Oftentimes we do this with something you almost certainly already know - a cow, a dump truck. Sometimes it's a joke. You have started making jokes by stating things you know are untrue. E.g. we'll pull up to the house, and you'll smile like you're about to pull a fast one and you'll say "Are we at SCHOOL?"

Sometimes you might actually be asking, as you are learning your colors now, and color is actually a tricky thing to learn. But sometimes I think it's also a ploy for attention, or further engagement. Like last night, when we were watching The Great Muppet Caper for the 90th time, and every minute or two you were saying "What happened? What happened, mama?" My explaining each plot point was like instant replay. I feel like you were doing it to have a conversation with me, and also watch the movie twice.

Then, sometimes, I will tell you that I don't know how something works, or what something does, and you will say "I can tell you, mama." And then you will explain. Not always accurately, of course, but I enjoy the authority with which you stand ready to help me make sense of the world. 

The Once and Future King

You are in a period of being fascinated with King Arthur. We have been reading "The Kitchen Knight," and several different Arthur stories, and knight books, and castle books, and we finally showed you the old Disney film "The Sword in the Stone," which is a somewhat bizarre tale with very few characters, most of whom spend the film transforming into various kinds of animals, which is somehow supposed to further Arthur's education so he can be king. But the upshot is that we spent the past weekend fabricating a knight helmet, shield, sword, and stone out of which to pull the sword from empty cardboard boxes, and also you have deduced from one of your picture books that there might be such a thing as toy castles and knights and Round Tables, and have asked me earnestly if you can have one. So, for your upcoming third birthday, I have been scouring the corners of the internet in search of a complete vintage 1974 Fisher Price Little People Play Family Castle, complete with knight, horse, carriage, king, queen, prince, princess, round table, and pink dragon. These things are collectible now, and cost about a zillion dollars, but they are so very cool, and you want something like this so very much, and you play with our old Little People stuff so much more than you play with just about anything else that I am telling myself it is worth it. The other day you and I jousted against the evil Red Knight of the Red Plain (the flagpole at Fort Sewall), then scaled the tall tower to free the imprisoned Lady Linesse or, as you put it, "die in the attempt!" (That's a line from the book.) You have outgrown your original flag cowboy boots and I have obtained new ones patterned in spider webs that light up - good footwear for knights. You want to fight dragons, and so our stuffed plush Christmas moose has agreed to dress up and pretend to be a dragon, though you periodically reassure him that you're not really a knight, you're just Charles dressed up as a knight. The moose is relieved, as he isn't really a dragon, either. 

Because we have stepped tentatively into classic animation, with only a few missteps (Peter Pan! Colossally racist against Native people! Things I did not remember, and now I get to explain why we don't watch Peter Pan anymore), we have lately added Alice in Wonderland. My favorite malapropism of our screening yesterday was when you were drawing a picture of "the treasure cat" (Cheshire cat). 

"That's not Sir Kay, that's me," you explain to me at one of the pictures in the Kitchen Knight as we snuggle in pillows at bedtime. "And that's you," you say, pointing to Gareth of Orkney. I love that you want us to ride and fight dragons together, or die in the attempt.