We’ve had some amusing conversations with Ari lately. Here are a couple of examples:

The other night, I was reading Ari his bedtime books. We were reading a Sandra Boynton book and he wanted me to “sing it.” I was doing my best, but I’m getting over a cold and have a very hoarse voice right now. He kept saying, “No, sing it!” I told him I was trying, but my voice isn’t very good right now. We turned to a page that showed the characters with their mouths open and a picture of musical notes, and he pointed to the notes and said, “See? They’re singing!” I told him again that I was singing it, and he said something like, “Why are you not singing very well?” I explained again, and he looked at me for a second with a little frown and said, “You can sing it another time. Just talk it right now.”

This morning, he pulled our complicated Pandemic game off the shelf and started asking me about all of the cards and pieces and pleading with me to teach him how to play it. We had to leave for school but he talked about it all the way to the car, not accepting my explanation that it’s a game for grown ups. As soon as we got home after school, he started talking about it again, and A. said that you have to be able to read all the cards, so he can play it when he knows how to read. Then Ari said that he can read, and agreed to read us one of his books to prove it. A. asked, “Which book are you going to get?” and Ari answered, “um…Brown Bear, Brown Bear” [What Do You See?], which is the only one he has perfectly memorized. A. said it had to be a different book and he said, “But I don’t know how to read any other books!”

Later, he was complaining about us not teaching him the game, saying, “I’m very sad! I’m very frustrated!” He’s been ascribing those feelings to himself a lot recently, which is a lot better than knocking things over or biting me. He also likes to talk about positive emotions. On the way home today, after I agreed to let him watch a video of Raffi singing Down By the Bay when we got home, he said, “Yeeee hee heeeee! I’m berry excited!” Later, he lay down in front of Andrew, watching him chew on a new toy, and asked, “Are you happy, Andrew? Excited? What feelings are you having?”