Both of my girls are funny and smart. While the Big One is still very much into bodily functions and slapstick humour, the Little One has occasionally given us glimpses of a razor sharp wit that belies her youth.
When the Little One was 3 years old, dinosaurs were
everything! She is now 8 ½ and is still very keen on them but struggles with
the fact that they are not particularly ‘girly’. I am working on the gender
stereotypes but back to when she was 3:
We were reading a farm book; I was pointing at the pictures
of the animals and asking LO what they were. ‘sheep’, ‘horse’ etc. We got to a
picture of a turkey and LO paused. I looked down at her and asked what the
animal was. She concentrated, then came up with the following response:
‘ummm…. A Galamimus?’
I was very confused by this response as LO knew what turkeys
were and she knew that dinosaurs don’t belong on farms. I had started
explaining this to her but when I saw the look on her face, it was clear that
she was highly amused. I asked if she was playing a trick on me and she responded by
bursting out laughing.
* note *
Galamimus means 'chicken mimic'. This type of dinosaur walked on two legs and was slightly larger than a modern chicken. Considering that LO knew many dinosaur names and appearances, it is not likely that she chose this dinosaur accidentally, adding to the intellectual level of her joke.
