Thursday, November 27, 2014

Conversations With Joey

Occasionally I post on Facebook about interactions with my 3-year-old grandson, Joey. It's usually easy to make them concise (because they usually are concise!). But here's a longer one from today.

We were at the piano, and as usual he knelt on the bench to peer at the sheet music and "read the directions," as he says. Most of the time they instruct him to sing "Old MacDonald" or "I Dropped My Dolly in the Dirt" (black-key song), but this time he said we should play a tune about Jack.

"Who's Jack?" I asked.
He explained that Jack was on the ice and fell.
Ah, I thought. This is a book someone read to him, maybe at the library.
I asked if Jack fell through the ice, and he said yes.
"That's terrible!" I said. "So dangerous."
"Yes," he said gravely. "It's very bad."
"So did someone rescue him?"
"No," he said.
"No??" I wondered what kind of book this could have been.
Then he had second thoughts. "The fireman came."
Whew!
"We have to play Jack on the piano," he reminded me.
"Jack has a song?"
"It's not a song," he said, clearly trying to be patient with ignorant Grammy. "You play it on the piano."
Oh. Okay.
So I played a few bars of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."
"Yes," Joey said. "That's the way it goes."

Later, as we sat down to read a book he looked around the living room. "Where's your boss?" he asked.
It sounded like "boss," but I didn't think that could be it. "My ball?" I asked.
"No—your boss," he said.
"My boss?"
He nodded.
"What's a boss?" I asked.
"A boss is a mom or a dad," he explained.

I told my son about this, and he said they had no idea where Joey got the word, but he uses it often.

And then as I posted on FB today, we read the book. Every line (I mean *every* line) prompted a "why" question. After 26 pages of this, I asked, "Why do you ask 'why' so many times?" He thought a moment, and then replied, "Because I need to talk."

10 comments:

Kathleen said...

It's so wonderful to watch their little brains put things together. Olivia yesterday started vehemently pointing to a page with just pictures in a book we were reading and saying "read this page." I explained it was the facing page that had the words, and we had already read them. "No. Read THIS page," she insisted. All I can imagine is that the previous time we had read the book I had read the words and then talked about the pictures.

Susan said...

I agree--wonderful and fascinating. And so much individuality showing so early.

Almost impossible to answer "why" questions about this book, BTW. "A Day With Wilbur Robinson" was disappointing. The premise is that the family is doing wild and crazy scientific things (time machine, frog musicians, etc.), but I felt it needed some backstory. Maybe the book is in the middle of a series. Joey kept asking why this, why that, and I kept answering, "I don't know." I really didn't! :-)

Eulalia Benejam Cobb said...

You are quite a Grammy!

Susan said...

I'm a lucky Grammy! :-)

crystal said...

He sounds so bright! I haven't experienced this stuff, having no kids. Maybe I can teach the cats to talk :)

Helen said...

What a fun read. It's worth slogging through 26 pages of "Why?" for moments like this.

Indigo Bunting said...

Very happy to have this long version!

Mali said...

Very cute!

Susan said...

Thanks, everyone!

TalleySueNYC said...

absolutely, "because I need to talk" is exactly why little kids ask "why" so much. It's an open-ended question, and it means the adults can't turn the attention "off" quite so quickly.