November 23, 2001 - Friday
There were two incidents today that just seem to show off Harry's increasing precociousness for a not-even-two-year-old boy:

The first happened while sitting at the kitchen table finishing his lunch. His grandpa was sitting on the sofa in the living and visible from the table through the wood stove's brick hearth and Harry had turned in his booster seat to effectively face grandpa. I don't remember how or why it started, but Harry launched into a string of rhyming, sound-alikes, and alliteration that must have lasted a solid minute or more. He was egged on a little by grandpa and me (I was sitting there at the table with him), but mostly this was Harry's free association and imagination at work. I can't possibly recall all the words and sounds he used, the large majority of which were quite nonsensical for the sake of the rhyming and word play, but several were multi-syllabic runs of rhyming sounds that I found wonderfully playful. One run that I do remember had a lovely juxaposition that exemplified how he continued on so long. He got into a rhyming set that included words like hug, bug, mug, pug, and sug, then seamlessly switched directions with "tug, tugboat, bugtote, pugfoat, moat, poat, zoat..."

The second was typical toddler, though I dare say usually an older toddler than Harry. He was playing with a nickel and a dime that he had found on the stand by the door a couple of days ago. I'd explained that they were "money" and he'd taken to calling the nickel either "nickel" or "big money" and the dime either "dime" or "little money" and he was passing this knowledge on to his grandpa with these coins when I came in the room with a carrier bag full of firewood for the stove. Harry, having taken a recent interest in the fire, immediately came over to "help" with the wood, as he has often of late. He still had the nickel and dime in his hand when he reached for the first piece of wood realized right away that he couldn't lift them with one hand. He quickly lifted the coins toward me and said "hold the money," so I slipped them in my pocket. Harry will usually pick the pieces of wood out of the bag and lift them as high as he can (maybe 3-4 inches, maybe with half the wood still on the ground) and I'll take them from him, since the pile is in the center of the hearth and out of Harry's reach without the great infraction of his "going on the bricks." I'll put the wood on the pile and thank him each time for his helpfulness. When we had unloaded the last piece of wood from the bag, Harry pronounced that we were "all done" and I got up to bring the empty carrier out to its place near the garage and Harry went back toward the coffee table and his grandpa. But, just as I was leaving the room, I heard Harry turn back toward me and beg in a sorrowful tone, "where's the money?" I'd forgotten it. Harry had not.


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