Advice: Don't argue with a 2 year old....

Yesterday, I was playing with Jack just before bedtime. Lately, one of his favorite things to do is undo and redo (over & over) his Shapes Puzzle. As he grabs each shape, he announces the name of the shape, "shircle" and places it in the appropriate spot (the circle indentation in the wooden base.) However, he and I had a disagreement on the name of a shape. I could not understand why he seemed to have forgotten this particular shape, but moreover, why he persisted in disagreeing with me. He would hold up the wooden square piece and say "cat". I would correct him by saying, "no, sweetheart, that's not a cat. It's a square". He would say "No, cat". Doesn't he know that I have a Master's in Education, and therefore, am quite competent at sorting shapes?!? With much alarm, I began to think that my child, who had known (and could name) all of the basic shapes, was all the sudden developing Oppositional Defiant Disorder. After all, I knew he could easily differentiate between a "cat" and a "square". However, I was not to be deterred. I just had to set him straight at once! After all, he couldn't be making such mistakes when testing to go to preschool...

Once more I held the shape in front of him (as shown below) and said "SQUARE".

Jack shook his head (side to side...clearly loosing his patience now), took the "square" away from me, looked at me like I was an idiot, held the shape (as seen below) in front of my face and repeated his utterance even louder...as if I was deaf, or dumb, or both. That's when I realized that while I had been "hearing" him say "cat", he was really trying to say "KITE".... (ding, ding, ding, ding, ding....) I'm sure he was quite proud of me as he saw the light go off in my head and my eyes register understanding. I laughed, kissed and hugged him and said, "Oh, I see, you meant to say KITE!" My two year old looked at me with relief, nodded with a smile, and said, "yeeees". Then he grabbed the star and said, "starfish".... Ahhhh! Now I got it. He had moved on from identifying basic shapes to analogies! Why didn't he just say that!! lol! j/k....

I told this story to the Admissions folks at Cooper today while working there at summer camp. They laughed much at my expense, and then announced (with a straight face) that it was OK. That Jack was welcome to apply for admission into Pre-K when old enough, as they do not "discriminate against children based on a parent's questionable mental acuity". Sighh...