A Little Intelligence Can Be Dangerous

Aidan has just enough vocabulary and language knowledge to sound like he’s participating in a coherent discussion, but not enough to actually make sense.

We made chocolate chip cookies tonight.

Me: Are your hands clean?
A: This hand is clean. This hand is a little clean. It’s OK, Mama. I know how to bake.
Me: Yeah, well, let’s wash your hands anyway.
……..
After mixing the dough with a wooden fork, I took a knife out to scrape the fork clean.
Me: The dough sticks to the fork, so we have to clean it off.
A: Wow! This is my very first…um…knife!
Me: Were you about to say these were your first cookies? Then you remembered all the cookies we made before Christmas.
A: Are these your first cookies?
Me: No.
A: Are these Papa’s first cookies?
Me: No, we’ve all had chocolate chip cookies before.
A: Chocolate chip cookies??!! Wow! I love those! Those are my favorite!
Me: Oh, good. So now we put them in the oven.
A: Ok, you roll out the dough first and then I’ll roll out the dough.
Me: No, these are chocolate chip, not rolled cookies. They bake in these little balls on the cookie sheet.
A (shaking head): Oh, no, not a cookie sheet.
Me: No?
A: No. You can’t say that, Mama.
Me: Um, OK. What would you call it?
A: It’s a cookie baking thing that you bake cookies on.
Me: Yeah. OK.
…………..
A: Oh! I can’t wait to hardly them!
Me: You can hardly wait to eat them?
A: Yeah!
Me: Let’s see how long we bake them. It says longer for 2 dozen, shorter for 3 dozen. How many do we have? (counts) We have 28.
A: 28? Oh no, that doesn’t sound good.

He always sounds reasonable enough, and can be quite emphatic.

In other news: He now has an office. It’s behind the easel in the corner by the floor lamp. According to him, it has a computer, two phones and a lamp. It also has a whole bunch of thank you cards that I’m trying to get him to draw on so we can send them out. He’s hoarding them and says he needs them for his work. He’s turning into a workaholic, though. When I try to change his diaper, he yells desperately, “No! I have to do my work! No! Please! I have to do my work!”

G. just threatened A. that if he didn’t cooperate in getting his jammies on, we’d eat all the chocolate chip cookies tonight while he slept. Damn, it worked.