Allo? Agent 86 Here

At 1.5 years old, Sammy's pickup of words is picking up. A word catches his attention, and then he observes how people use it, in what context, then he starts using them.

The latest one he picked up is the 'Hello?' that people say when talking into phones.  At every opportunity, he will pick up the phone and speak into it : Allo!  Allo! Allo!

Of course no one answers, so he speaks louder and louder: ALLO! ALLO! ALLO!

The last Allo coming with all his might (you can almost see the veins in his neck).

But he tends to drop the phone, so we've banned him from using it.  Ever resourceful, he improvises, and speaks into other things: the headset, his toy trucks, and of course, his shoes, waiting for someone at the other end: ALLO! ALLO! ALLO!

 

* * *

Me! Me! Me!

Sammy has picked up another word: Me.  He can pronounce it, but he doesn't know what it means. As one can expect, this has turned him into a magnet for jokes:

Pia: Who's the smelliest boy in the world?

Sammy: (proudly) Me!

Daddy: Who is ugly?

Sammy: ME!

* * *

Clueless Cluedo, 2

Dominic and Pia struggle to learn the ways of playing Cluedo.  Daddy's turn to make a guess, and Dominic has to check his cards to see if he has any of the guessed items.

He goes through each card in his pack:

Dominic: (softly, but audibly) Knife...Mrs. Peacock... Lounge...Kitchen...Candlestick...

* * *

Clueless Cluedo

We bought a board game called Cluedo and tried to play it with Dominic and Pia.  We knew Pia was too young to play by herself so she partnered with Mummy.

Let the Game begin.

Dominic's first three turns were wasted traversing the board, bypassing open rooms.  He seems to be vectoring toward the Kitchen, located on the far side of the board.  After three turns, he's only halfway there:

Daddy: Why don't you try and enter the other rooms so you can make a guess?  You are wasting your turns.

Dominic: I want to go to the Kitchen to cook.

* * *

Obchession

Once we introduced Dominic to chess, it took only a couple of hours before he was able to pick up all but the most obscure of rules.  We had wondered if he was too young, but it turns 6 is just the right age.

To help him learn more about tactics, we borrowed a couple of chess books from the public libraries.

He was delighted with the books and consumed them  with obsession. He studies them at night before nodding off.  He reads them first thing in the morning, even before getting out of bed.  He skims them while eating breakfast (to the distress of Mommy who needs to make sure they get to school on time).  He scans them while brushing his teeth, and he ponders on them while sitting...well, you can guess where.

Of course, the best way to learn is to play with your peers, especially those better than you, so we enrolled him in weekly chess class at his school.

One day:

Daddy:  Did you play chess today?

Dominic: Yes.

Daddy: Who did you play with?

Dominic: With Lxxx (a girl)

Daddy: Did you win?

Dominic: No.

Daddy: (surprised) How did she win?

Dominic: She tricked me.  She told me that her bishop cannot go backwards.

 

* * *