Inside the Mind of a Three-Year-Old

What must it be like to be with very few pre-conceived notions? How does it feel to experience so many things for the first time?

I'm really enjoying that aspect of parenthood - seeing the world through the eyes of my kids. They just see things so differently. They notice things that we walk right by. They come up with ideas from an entirely different place.

My son has started making up names for his toys. It started a while back, when we got this squishy, spiny, stretchy thing that looks like the love child of a koosh and a shower cap. Well, when you put it on your hand, it becomes a monster. At least to my little boy. So after we played with it for a while, I gave it a voice, and a name. It was just some made up word. But Edson told me that wasn't it's name. So I tried again. Nope. I went through quite a few names, but none of them were to his liking.

So finally, I asked him what the monster's name was.

"Gargwoj," he replied. So, Gargwoj it was. And is.

A couple weeks later, he was playing with some weird little doll with orange hair.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's a girl."

"Oh, ok. What's her name?"

Without missing a beat, he said, "Carlit."

"Carlit?"

"Yeah, Carlit."

A few days later, he came to me, saying "Daddy, daddy, come look. He's Humby."

"He's hungry?"

"Humby! This is 'Humby.'"

"The caterpillar toy is named Humby?"

"Yeah."

I have to say, the names suit the toys pretty well.

A couple days ago, Lori got him a toy parking garage. Not knowing what it was called, he dubbed it a "car director."

The other funny thing he does, when he forgets which parent he's talking to, is alter his sentence on the fly.

"Look at this mm-my daddy."

"Come over here daa-t mommy."

He's a funny kid....