Kidspeak

My kids love books, but my Adah lives for books. She would never put them down if she could and I'm so looking forward to the day when she can actually read the words on the pages. We have so many books in our house that we are just out of places to put them. The girls have a book shelf in their room and we have a book bin in the playroom, but the extras end up getting stored in the built-in shelves in our playroom.

The playroom bookshelves are too high for the kids to reach, so Adah often drags me into the room to get her a book off of the shelf. She has a hard time telling which book is which just by their spines, so she usually resorts to commands like, "I want the yellow one" or "The one with the fishies!". It sometimes takes me a while to figure out the one she is referring to (it's not as clear cut as it sounds with some of the descriptions she gives), but usually we figure it out and she goes on her merry bookworm way. Recently though, I was a bit thrown by one of her descriptions ...


Adah: "Mom! Can I get a book from the shelf please?"

Me: "Sure, I'm coming."

Adah, pointing: "I want that one right there!"

Me: "Ok, I'm gonna need a little more guidance than that. Which one? What color is it?"

Adah: "It's that one right THERE! The caboose one!"

Me: "The caboose one? Is it red? I don't see a book with trains on it."

Adah: "No! The CABOOSE one! That one right there!"

Me, noticing she's pointing to the last book on the shelf: "This one?? But this doesn't have anything about trains."

Adah: "I know Mom, but it IS the caboose book because it's the one on the end, see?


Ahhhhh, we already have a Ms. Smarty Pants in our house. She's throwing out the metaphors at the ripe old age of four.