The Green Snake with the Sun in it

I am utterly intrigued with the mind of a three year old. The process by which they learn everything from motor skills to communicating, is not only fascinating to me, but it is quite humorous. I love how insightful  Apollo is. I love his choice of words when having a conversation, either to himself, or anyone in earshot. It is fair to say that I am mesmerized by the whole process.

  I did not foresee that at this age, Apollo would reach the point that he realizes he has not yet learned a word that he needs to use to express himself. His method for verbalizing this lack of word wisdom is simple; "I can't say something". You can hear the frustration in his voice at the fact that he does not know the word or words to use. We listen for the cues and try to present the words to him to use. The fascinating part is that he will often know that you are not presenting him with the right word and will refute it with "Not that one!" On the flip side, when he discovers the right word on his own, he will exclaim; "I found a word! I can say something! Hooray!"
  There is another side to the quest for words; Apollo will often assemble words from his limited vocabulary, to describe something that he saw and is now looking for. The challenge as a parent, is to listen to what he is saying, and think in the simplest terms possible, and we can often figure out what he is trying to look for. Two great examples I can offer are from this past weekend at various Independence Day Celebrations. The first story is from July 4th, as we were at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, at the Red, White and Boom celebration. We chose this event as it has Apollo's favorite band playing at it, for the past two years. We spent last year standing right in the front of the stage with Apollo on my shoulders dancing to the music. The band that I speak of is Wonder Bread 5. This band plays hits from the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and today, all while wearing costumes and wigs. They are very entertaining. This year, when Apollo decided it was time to make our way to the front, I scooped him up and sat him on my shoulders and made my way to the front row. Once we got up front, Apollo started  to freak out a bit and wanted to leave. I eventually had to leave and start making my way back through the crowd, all the while, Apollo was going on and on about something that I could not understand. We made it back to Melanie, by which time Apollo was nearly in tears. I finally had to set him on the ground, get down on my knees and ask him to tell me what he wanted...several times. "I want to go to the toy store and get the Queen in the red box, with the button to push with the light on it". After several minutes, I finally realized that he was talking about going to Walmart (we went earlier that day) and getting the toy he wanted (which we told him he could not have) that was a Disney Pixar Lightning McQueen car that was in a red box. The car had a button on the top that when pushed, the hood opened and a little LED light illuminated and the car talked. I was a bit perplexed as to what the trigger was that set him off on this obsessive moment. I thought maybe it was this all boy bands rendition of Katy Perrys, 'I kissed a girl'....no, that wouldn't do it.   It was at that moment, that I realized that it was much simpler; it was the costumes! Wonder Bread 5 was dressed up as 'Toy Soldiers'.

  Or at least that is how Apollo saw them. I am not exaggerating when I tell you, incidences such as this are a daily occurrence. I know it drives Melanie nuts, but I think it is adorable.
   My favorite story of the weekend is the morning of the 4th. Apollo woke up at 7:00am. Trying to avoid a conflict with his mom, he rolls into my arm and whispers, "Dadda, the sun is up. Lets go get breakfast." I drug myself out of bed and was ordered to make pancakes and scrambled eggs.  While cooking up this order, Apollo started asking for the "green snake with the sun in it". I told him, "Apollo, I don't think you have a green snake", "Yes I do! it has the sun in it! Go get it now!" He snapped back.
   This went on for well over an hour. I quizzed Melanie, Ian, and Aden on this. They all agreed, they did not know what Apollo was talking about. Apollo will pretty much call any thing a snake that is long and flexible, so I was playing back in my mind any thing that I had seen laying around that was green and could be considered a snake. But what about the sun? I could not think of what had a sun on it that looked like a snake. Apollo finally found what he was looking for in Aden's room.

 We had spent the previous evening at a friends house. They had a pot luck dinner and we watched the fireworks from their home, courtesy of the city of Windsor.  The children were all given glowing necklaces and glow sticks. Apollo had a pink glow stick, but apparently he saw Aden with a green glow necklace. He found this necklace in Aden's room and paraded it around the house; "See, this is the green snake with the sun in it."
  Indeed, it was. Mystery solved.