A Glimpse Into the Mind of a Three-Year-Old

This isn't a Mommy Monday, and I don't have anything particularly writerly to write about for tomorrow. So today I'm just doing a random Jack post, because sometimes the stuff he does is too good not to write down. For those of you with kids (hell, for those of you without kids), it might not sound like anything spectacular. But he's mine, and I think he's adorable, so I hope you'll indulge me today.

I'm not sure if it was spending the last ten days in Paris with English-speaking family members (yeah, it was awesome, and yes, it's hard to be back), but Jack's speech has exploded even more over the last few days. I mean, the kid has always been a talker, but he's having full-on conversations now, and even though I don't know what he's talking about half of the time, it's hilarious to try to follow the thought process of a three-year-old.

Nevermind the creepy arterial blob above Mary's head; it's the naked baby that Jack wants to hear about!

For example, I was just in the bathroom folding laundry when Jack took his little red fleece jacket, draped it around my neck, and said I was going to the doctor. What started out as a stethoscope (I think) somehow morphed into a hair dresser's smock. Jack got a haircut in Paris, so apparently it was my turn to get my hair cut "short like Daddy." He picked up one of his monkey socks and placed it in the palm of his hand, then proceeded to run my hair through the folded sock, which I guess was his idea of cutting my hair. I tried to ignore the crazy amounts of static he was generating (and the occasional yanked strand) because he was so earnest about it. He alternated between saying he was cutting my hair short and that he was giving me a big, big doctor (still confused about that one). Then he used a pair of my folded socks to wave over my head like a blow dryer. Finally, he grabbed a pair of pants and brushed my hair with them before proclaiming that I was "all done." Best haircut of my life.

While we were eating brunch at my sister's house the other day, Jack decided to recount the story of his injured eye from Christmas Eve, over and over and over. "Mommy, remember in the Montana house when I fell and hit my eye on the bar stool and had a booboo and put ice on it and, and, remember Mommy?" We heard variations of that for about five minutes straight, until his cousins had decided Jack was insane and I started to wonder if the episode had scarred him for life. (Seriously, I was just proofing this post and Jack started talking about his eye again. WTF?!)

Yesterday Jack created an elaborate scene with his Clipo blocks involving a family of matryoshka dolls eating pizza together, with the tiniest one in a high chair and the biggest one (the mommy), sitting next to it. When it was time for "ta-zert," Jack started flinging Lego people, animals, and vehicles into a giant pile. The elephant was a gray birthday cake; the brown bear was chocolate. Duh.

Jack's favorite part of Notre Dame? The bells. And the train Grammy bought him before our tour.

I know these are the kinds of things all kids this age do, and Jack has been playing pretend for a long time, the way all toddlers do. But now that he can actually describe what he's doing, I get to really see things through his eyes, to understand what is going on in that ever-developing brain of his. Potty training may be making me insane; his occasional post-bedtime "I'm thirsty" routine is so cliche I feel like I must have inadvertently given him the idea; and I do occasionally worry about his bizarre fixations (is it normal for a kid this age to continue to be obsessed with fans? And he was REALLY into that baby Jesus...). But mostly, I love the funny, thoughtful, curious little boy Jack is becoming, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.