Daddy's Desk - Nov, 2006 "Crayons"

There is a bitter-sweet reality to preschool that has begun to set in for Dad. In just a few short weeks, my son is beginning to use correct words. I noticed it early on when asking him how his day at school went. He started giving me bizarre 2-word responses, such as “I paint” or “I dance” or his version of a run-on sentence, “I play cars”. With the blink of an eye, the little munchkin was actually making sense to me. Gone forever are those adorable crowd-pleasing mis-pronunciations. Suddenly, “d-dots” is now “donuts”; “punkies” is now pumpkins”. “Janamas” is now “pajamas”. His brother “Alice” is now “Alex”, “Bema” is now “Grandma”, and “Soupy” is now “Snoopy”. In fact, he’s not only pronouncing words correctly, he’s now correcting me when I try to goad him into using one of his old phrasings. He refuses to say the wrong words, even for old-times sake. Gone too are those randomly inappropriate responses to questions. I used to ask “How are you?”, and his response was always “yes”.
But now he tells me “I’m fine, how’s the black car?” Driving with him in the black car is getting entertaining. He will now break into sing-song phrasing, with occasional “one-two-three-four-five” counts. Most bizarre, he has acquired a Spanish accent which seems to show up when discussing “ba-na-nas”. In fact, his vocabulary has progressed so quickly he now leads our dinner table with grace, and it actually sounds reverent. It used to go something like, “God is good, God is food, Amen, Dig In!” Now he bows his head, takes a peek to make sure everyone is with him, then recites a heartfelt prayer. And his colors? He’s becoming a veritable walking Crayola Crayon box…no longer limited to the primary colors blue, green, red and yellow. He has now branched off into gold, fuchsia, silver, indigo, and robin's egg blue.
I knew this day would come, but something tells me they’re doing a lot more than painting, dancing, and playing cars in preschool.