“Ashes, ashes we all fall down!”

Jamie treated me to an impromptu rendition of Ring around the Rosie while driving home from grandma and grandpas recently. When he got to the end line he let his body go limp in the car seat, with a sense of finality.

When he does this inside now, he falls to the ground with this line, acting it out. At some point preceding the initial rendition, I’m sure he heard the song and it popped into his mind because silence is the mortal enemy of any 2-year-old. He would lose at the quiet game every time, so there is no point in trying that gem yet.

Pretty much every word uttered out of a 2-year-old’s mouth comes from something he has heard before. A lot of what he says makes him sound savvy and smart. A lot of what he says is hilariously out of context.

For example, I began changing his diaper the other day when he told me “It’s hot. No touchy touchy,” while shaking his finger. He was telling his dad to keep out. But he probably got it from someone trying to keep him away from the stove.

He also repeated the President’s name as Bock O-Gamma over and over for a considerable amount of time. I’m still not sure he’s learned that one the right way.

I must utter the phrase “I wonder where he got that?” while shaking my head and smiling at least 10 times a day. There are the things that make me laugh inside our own home, that I hope with every fiber of my body are never repeated outside my home. (For a 2-year-old he has an extremely keen sense of anatomy.)

Concepts such as time are difficult for Jamie to understand, but he’s got an excellent memory. He can recite the alphabet, his address, what he did that day, or remind us seemingly out of nowhere that his aunt and uncle live in California.

Yet when we tell him “Mommy and daddy love you,” before he goes to bed, he repeats the phrase verbatim back to us. It is a reminder that at this stage his world is built on repetition.

I know that once he is a bit older and his vocabulary further expands I am in for some creatively phrased questions. I know that the quiet game is only reserved for extreme circumstances and could likely remain a futile strategy.

I remember driving with him in the car seat and almost forgetting that he was there because he was so quiet. He’s no longer shy about sharing what is on his mind.

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