Flipping the switch

I'm always amazed at how our son changes with the mere flip of a calendar page. Danny turned three on Tuesday. Just how exactly does his little brain know that he must start asking rapid fire questions right about now?

What's that? Where did the boys go? Where did Dad go? Are you okay? What's in my sock? What's in there? What's going on? What's that noise?

Thank goodness we haven't gotten to the why questions yet. My best friend, bless her patient soul, answers every one of them. I'm not so patient and will have to set a three why minimum per series per hour. On the bright side, when he gets around to asking why maybe he'll start to understand our questions, like "Why do you poop in your pants when you used to poop in the potty?" and "Why did you pour the entire box of Cheerios into the napkin basket?" Now he just gives us a blank stare and repeats the question verbatim.

His brain is also starting to work a little differently. Either that or he's getting much better at explaining just what goes on up there. This morning's breakfast conversation was an excellent example.

Danny wanted me to cut his cheese, just like I cut Fiona's cheese into pieces. I explained that I was cutting it into quarters.

"Put it in the cash register," he said, nodding.

"No, please don't put cheese in your cash register, dear," I said. And then I tried to explain the fractions to my three year old. Four pieces make a whole, each piece is one quarter, etc.

He then asked me for a piece of my egg in "dimes, please." Then he chewed up his cheese, opened his mouth and said, "pennies."

I couldn't help but laugh.

Oh, and please permit me to brag just a wee bit ... yesterday Danny wanted to start using the computer mouse when we were doing "letters" on Starfall.com. So I let him, figuring it would kill some time (it did) and be an exercise in patience for me (it was). He did pretty well and by the end of the day, when we sat down to do letters again, he directed the entire process from choosing the letters to clicking and dragging them into the right places, etc. I was absolutely stunned at how quickly he picked this up.