I never understood the tradition of watching grownups lug colossal inflatables down the street as a way to celebrate Thanksgiving. Of course this typically occurs while someone barely famous talks with random guests about sitcoms I’m not interested in watching, or Broadway musicals that I don’t care about.

Turkey and football have always provided enough backdrop for me to give thanks. That is until my 20-month old son points to each inflatable with great enthusiasm trying to figure out what they are. No matter his accuracy, his adorable enthusiasm is contagious.

“Baby?”

“No, buddy. That’s a clown,” I said pointing with him at Ronald McDonald.

“Mickey?”

“No, buddy. That’s a police officer.”

It is fascinating watching Jamie begin to piece together his surroundings, and he did begin to get a few of the parade floats right. He recognized Elsa on the Frozen float, while bouncing up and down and pointing with great enthusiasm.

Of course, he is also prone to walk up to a television that is turned off and emphatically plead “Elsa, Elsa, Elsa!” as a way to ask you to watch Frozen for the hundredth time. I’m not sure what it means that he is infatuated with the isolated, more dangerous of the sisters, but there is plenty of time to analyze that.

He is beginning to count and repeat some of the ABCs on his own. He knows his body parts better than ever before. And he sure loves his books.

We settled into a routine of reading Good Night Moon before bed, that he now anticipates almost every night, except he refers to it as “Bye bye moon.” He can finish certain lines in the book, and has become strangely infatuated with the mouse on the floor in the room. The main character says good night to some extremely arbitrary stuff in that book, but the fact that the mouse is his favorite has his mother slightly disturbed.

It is fascinating to watch him piece more and more things together. He is beginning to move past words, into phrases and starting to put together some concepts. Watching his mind at work is enough to tolerate (and possibly enjoy) the change to the Thanksgiving Day routine. Nothing he can say will convince me to like musicals, however.