As his third birthday approaches, Elliott’s vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. He comes out with individual words that cause us all to look at each other in disbelief and wonder aloud: “who taught him that?” Usually we do not know and probably never will know. These are words like lobster, planets, hermit crab, submarine, and humpback whale.

But then there are the concepts that are amazing and often very funny. While looking at  his parents’ wedding pictures  hanging on the walls at our home he says “Mommy has a beautiful dress and they are very happy.” Then he adds “I wasn’t there because I decided to stay at our home.”

Or when talking about how hard construction site workers work he throws out: “My daddy works hard, too. He works in a scraper building.” Well, to a two year old
I guess a six story office building does look like a skyscraper. But where did he learn skyscraper?

Our best guess is he is learning some of these things during his three days a
week at preschool. But my bet is there are bewildered teachers at school
wondering where he learned some of what he says there and concluding he
must be learning that at home.

It brings to mind something one of my children’s teachers told a group of assembled parents of kindergarteners many years ago. “I won’t believe half of what I hear is going on in your house if you don’t believe half of what you hear is going on in my classroom.” Deal.