Polite Mizzings from a Tired Observer

I'm not one to pretend that most anyone else cares what my kid says or that other kids don't say things just as cute. That's why I don't spend much time touting the fact that the Mizz says the darnedest things. However, the Mizz does sometimes say things that amuse me as he's getting a grip on language and numbers and the world and such. My wonderful wife thinks I should record them from time to time, and this seems as good a place as any to do it.

One thing that's fun to watch is the development of numbers and math. The Mizz counts quite well up to about 15 these days, and can do simple adding and subtracting in his head up to about 5 or 6, which seems pretty cool to me. However, his grasp of what these numbers actually mean is interesting. He knows that he is 2. He's also pretty sure the Daddy is 3 and my old lady really is old at 4. Up until recently, 3 or 4 has stood in to mean "a lot." That's changing, though, as he's becoming more interested in larger numbers. He knows about 20 and 3o and on up, but he can't count to them and they don't seem to have any value to him except as new values for "a lot." He really got me the other day though when he was standing on the scale. He knows that he is about 20. 20 what, he has no idea, but it's 20. (He's actually about 30 lbs. these days, but he's usually hanging on the counter.) I asked him how much Daddy weighed, and he decided that I must be "ten-ty." I suppose I should be offended, as I can only assume ten-ty means the same thing to him as a gazillion.

One of my favorite Mizzizms so far came at a playground. We were working on taking a big step to get over a drainage ditch in the pavement. He looks down with a "What's dat?"

"That's a ditch, buddy."

"A bitch!"

"No, a ditch, with a D."

"Bitch, with a D."

"Not quite, buddy. Ditch, like Daddy."

"Bitch, like Daddy."

"Um, yeah. Something like that. Let's go follow that yellow line over there..."