The Tyrannical Rule Of Toddler-Logic

Living with a toddler has the peculiar effect of altering one’s perspective on the outside world in much the same way as I imagine a fistful of LSD might in the hands of a tie-dyed True Believer, for whom the reality of the really real world is but a thin and illusory veil just waiting to be penetrated and ripped apart through the wonders of modern pharmacology…or, as it turns out, by the keen and curious intellect of a child.

Trey is a contemplative student of the world, and so his progressive milestones tend to spring upon us in alarming ways due to their lack of developmental preview. He’s not a baby-stepper, in other words. He goes from sitting quietly and appearing as though he’s not absorbing any of the material, to suddenly shocking you with how much he’s actually taken in. He went from spouting out random numbers between one and five, and refusing to learn that they progress in a specific order, to spontaneously counting well into the twenties without a skipped beat. He went from recognizing only a few letters of the alphabet to an immediate and inexplicable mastery of the Alphabet Song, and can now point out every letter of the alphabet whenever he sees a sign with lettering that piques his interest.

So, it is from this perspective that I offer unto you some of the child’s ponderous wisdom and – because no true genius should be without – one of his charming idiosyncrasies, as well. First up, we have his stern and calculated approach to Astronomy. I’ve no doubt that Science could learn a thing or two from Trey, but I’ll leave it up to you decide. I do have to warn you, however – arguing with him on his points of observation will lead you down the dark, labyrinthine catacombs of his mind. I seriously doubt you are prepared for the trip.

Trey loves the moon. He sees it in the night sky, and makes it a point to draw attention to its existence in any way possible. Most often, this involves him grabbing the face of whomever it is who has the good fortune of carrying him at the moment, and pulling or pushing it in the desired direction he wishes you to look. He then points at the moon, steals a quick glance to make sure you’re watching, and proclaims, “Look! The moooooooooon!” This goes on until he either gets tired of the game (read: never), or until you’re either buckling him into his car seat or walking into an indoors venue that blocks his view of the celestial orb.

This same sort of thing happens during the day, but not in quite the way as you might imagine. Upon spotting the great glowing wheel in the sky, he grabs your face, pulls or pushes your gaze into alignment, then points and proclaims, “Look! The mooooooon!” Clearly, you might think, the child is confused and immediate attention must be paid to his education, lest he become one of Those People. I assure you, I tried this. I truly did, and I did it with all of the earnest verve any good father would show his son as he guides him down the great road of education. However, as I alluded to earlier, this proved to be an egregious error in judgement.

Upon trying to teach him that the fiery sphere in the daytime sky is called the sun, Trey grew instantly agitated and contorted his adorable face into a Venetian carnival mask of consternation and effrontery. “No!” he shouted, with all of the righteous fury his three-year-old vocal chords would allow. “No, it not the sun! It the mooooooon!”

I remained calm in the face of his aggressive stance on the matter, and simply told him that, “No, Trey. That’s the sun. The moon comes out at nighttime.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head and pursing his lips dramatically. “No, dat not the sun. Dat the moon!”

I could see that I had my work cut out for me, so I did the foolish thing and tried to resort to adult logic. “No, Trey. That’s the sun,” I said, hopefully. “It comes out in the morning and lights up the daytime and makes it hot.” I felt proud of my well-reasoned statement, and I let out a slight sigh of contentment and ill-placed confidence before I went in for the pièce de résistance. “The moon,” I began with a smug satisfaction that came from thinking I was winning the debate, “comes out at nighttime, after the sun goes to sleep. The moon doesn’t like it when it’s hot, so he goes to sleep in the daytime, and the sun comes up.”

Mac Tonight:
The cool moon

“Oh,” he said, just before crinkling his baby brow and cutting his ginormous eyes at me. “Noooooooo,” he said, dragging out the vowel and shaking his tiny head from side to side. “Dat’s the moon.”

“No, Trey. That’s the sun. It’s hot.”

“Noooo, dat not the sun! Dat’s the moon.”

I decided to concede defeat. Cut my losses. Tactically withdraw so that I could fight another day. “Ok, Trey.” I sighed. “That’s the moon.” I slumped back into the driver’s seat and put the car in reverse.

“Nooooooo!” came an immediate exclamation from the back seat. “DAT’S THE HOT MOON!”

The second bit of Trey’s wisdom that I wish to share with you today is shorter than the first, but no less illuminating. Being a child of divorced parents, Trey identifies both parental houses a bit differently. He calls his father’s trailer “Daddy’s House,” for instance, while calling my home “Kris’ House” – most of the time. Sometimes, it’s “Mama and Kris’ House” or “Mama and Kris and Trey’s” or simply, “Home.” Most of the time, it’s something with the word house in it. This, coupled with the fact that I enjoy taking him to breakfast at Waffle House during our Boy’s Time days (where he eats a dry waffle and an obscene amount of bacon), has led him to conclude that everything in this world is named by simply slapping house on the end of the title.

Going out for pizza? You’re headed to Pizza House!
A cookie from the cookie stand? Cookie House!
Need some books? Head over to the Book House!
Buying toys? Toy House!

I’ll wrap up today’s essay by discussing just one of Trey’s eccentric little idiosyncrasies, which comes from his strong belief in proper etiquette. The child – and I kid you not – is practically a goose-stepping zealot when it comes to returning a well-placed thank you with a polite you’re welcome. This, in and of itself, seems like a good thing, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t every parent like to have a polite child, who observes the niceties of the unspoken social contract to which we all subscribe?

Of course they would! Having an excessively polite child around has its other benefits, as well. As I’ve mentioned before, Trey is a strong and powerful chick magnet, and his insistence on observing proper etiquette is a primary reason for his considerable powers of cuteness. Whenever we go through a cash register, the clerk receives a huge “Thank you!” from Trey, which is always followed by a smiling, “You’re welcome,” which is, in turn, followed by a nod of approval to me of a job well done, and – if Trey is lucky enough for the clerk to be an elderly lady – a piece of hard candy. (It is a seldom documented law of the universe that elderly women have some unidentifiable lump of hard candy upon their persons at all times. This is a fact that, while not widely publicized, is certainly well-known by every human on the planet who is both under the age of five, and who is not at all unwilling to sacrifice a little cheek squeezing in exchange for a delicious sweetie.)

All is not always as it seems, of course, when one is discussing the lives and times of toddlers. Trey, while an extremely polite three-year-old who says things like please and sometimes slips in a sir or a ma’am, can go a little overboard in his demand that every nicety he grants unto others be returned to him, in kind. Things usually work themselves out quite well, as people in general are eager to be polite to small children that display good manners. However, sometimes his fervid demand for strict observance of proper decorum Presents A Problem.

Case in point, this past Saturday. We’d taken Trey to my parents (Mammie and Pop’s House!) to swim in the pool and play with some other kids. After an early evening filled with splashing and swimming and Learning To Share, everyone went inside to eat. The kids gorged themselves on pizza, while the adults ate delicious fajitas. Trey enjoyed flirting with a little girl named Gigi, much to the dismay of her father, who is one of my mother’s former fifth grade students, but who is now all grown up, with a family of his own. (She’s been teaching for a long time.) Trey enjoyed singing “pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girls” to her, sometimes replacing the word girls with her name, Gigi. He told her that he liked her hair, and gave her hugs and kisses followed by a very loud and boisterous, “Ohhhhh yeahhhh!” Gigi’s daddy, ever vigilant against the unwanted attentions of a foul usurper of his daughter’s purity, kept a watchful eye on Trey for the rest of the night.

Of course, it was all in good fun and very cute, so there was much laughter all around. (Which, as any parent knows, only encourages children to continue the behavior until someone either gets hurt, gets in trouble – or both.) Towards the end of the night, Trey was playing with Gigi’s cousin, Anthony. The game they were playing seemed to consist entirely of taking plastic golf clubs out to the playground and beating the crap out of the Playground Rules sign. (Yeah! Fight the power!) When Anthony offered to let Trey unleash a dual-wielding fury upon The Man by offering him his club, Trey graciously accepted, and gave Anthony a very sincere “Thaaaaank you!”

It should be noted here that Anthony is a bit younger than Trey, and decidedly less vocal. Tragically, this earlier stage of development proved detrimental to Anthony’s experience with Trey, as he was unable to return the thank you with the expected (and demanded) you’re welcome. Trey was displeased with this effrontery to politeness, and so repeated himself, for effect. “Thaaaaank you,” he said, with just the hint of an edge creeping into his voice.

Silence.

“THANK you,” he said again, this time growing observably irritated.
Crickets chirp.

“THANK YOU!” Trey shouted, visibly upset now and growing angry.
Blank, innocent stare.

“THANK YOU!” Trey again shouted, only this time the cheerfully colored plastic golf club in his right hand began to rise in a foreboding display of oncoming terror. “THANK YOU!”

Blank, but more-scared-now-than-innocent stare, followed by a hasty retreat and terrified running.

Trey gave chase, yelling “THANK YOU!” as politely as any madman could in the midst of a psychotic episode. Anthony ran into my parents’ bedroom, where Trey cornered him on the opposite side of their bed, next to the window. And, like a little Norman Bates, he walked with a slow and sinister determination towards Anthony, who himself was wide-eyed with terror and confusion. “Thank you, Anthony!” Trey chanted. “Thank you. Thank you! THANK YOU, ANTHONY!”

We have ways of making you polite, Herr Playmate!

Fortunately, it was around this time when Pops suddenly announced that dessert was about to be served, which I’ve no doubt saved little Anthony’s life – or at least prevented him from developing a tragic and irrational aversion to the words thank and you for the rest of his life. At the first suggestion of the sticky, sweet confectionery delights of dessert, Trey smiled and forgot all about Anthony’s gross ignorance of social graces, and Anthony forgot all about Trey’s homicidal interpretation of Miss Manners. The pair of them came running out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, beaming shimmering grins of innocence and friendship.

Ah, to be young again!

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