One of N’s favorite things are these flashcards that J picked up somewhere. They are oversized – about as long and wide as a VCR tape – with a photo of an animal on one side. The other side has the name of the animal, and then lists a bunch of different activity ideas. The photos are very well done, showing the animal in its natural habitat with surprisingly vivid colors.

N loves the pictures, and he’s working hard on learning the names of the animals. I’m not sure why we spend so much time teaching kids "cows say moo", but we do. N has only a couple of the animals down, along with the sounds they make.

A few days ago I was sitting in the den playing with C, when N came toddling over to me carrying a flashcard. "Cah! Cah!"

That’s his word for cow. Unfortunately, the flashcard had a picture of a chicken on it. I pointed to the chicken, and said very clearly "No. Chicken. Chic-ken."

Usually, he repeats what I say when something like that happens, but this time he gave a weird little shrug and toddled away.

He was back fairly soon, carrying another flashcard. "Chi-tsen! Chi-tsen!"

I guessed he meant "Chicken", but this flash card had a horse on it. I corrected him, he gave another of those shrugs and went back to the flashcards.

He repeated this process several more times, going back and getting a new card each time: horse, turkey, mouse, duck, tiger, kangaroo. Each time, he got more and more frustrated.

Finally, he came over with the chicken card again. "Chi-tsen! Chi-tsen!"

I applauded, which caused C to applaud too.

What else could N do? Flush with his victory, he moved on to making the animal sound: "Kak, Kak, Kak."

No N, that’s a duck.

I could have sworn that he sighed.