A few days ago, Ishu was eating his breakfast cereal at the table. He was using a pink Yogurtland spoon but asked for a fork as well. Ankur handed him a red fork that he placed next to his bowl.

He looked at his cereal and said, “The good news is I have a spoon of my favorite color. The bad news is I don’t have a fork that’s my favorite color.”

Which, as I’m thinking back to this conversation, I’m pretty impressed that it was a simple observation of good news/bad news. When a year ago (and maybe even when he’s tired or hangry now), the wrong color fork or spoon would have sent him in a spiral.

I looked at him. “Pink? When is pink your favorite color?”

Ankur looked up at me and said, “Pink’s been his favorite color”

Me: “Ok…for like a week…?”

Ankur: “For like THREE weeks.”

Ishu: “Yeah! My favorite colors are pink…and teal.”

Ankur: “Teal? Okay.”

Ishu: “And also my favorite color is tan.”

Ankur: “Is Papa tan?” (holding out his arm)

Ishu: “Mmhmm.“

Ankur: “Is Ishu tan?”

Ishu: “No I’m gold.”

Gold is another favorite color.

It used to be that rainbow was his favorite color. But I guess rainbow does not also include tan or teal or gold. So, here we are.

Everything is a favorite. (Minus red which was his favorite color for two years. Guess we OD’ed on that one).

He’s in the most wonderful stage of language right now. He can hold conversations (as long as his attention span will allow for it) but his interpretation of the world is a little more simple. He also struggles with homophones. Like, the other day, I said something about how he was putting on a show because he was being quite entertaining. His ears perked up at the word “show” and he settled in on the couch, waiting for a TV show to be turned on. Ha.

He is also in a little bit of a rebellious stage (I mean, I guess this stage has been here for a while and will continue to be here for a long while). But when you try to provide any sort of correction or feedback that he does not like, he’ll scream, “NO! THOSE ARE BAD WORDS!”

And, over the past year, his articulation of words has improved. Like he says the /sh/ sound now when he used to only say /s/ (so I loved when he wanted to wear his ‘shark shirt’ because the way he said it was so dang cute). But he does still call the “harmonica” the hue-monica. And I’m holding on to that for as long as I can.

I want to bottle up his little sweet voice and everything he says.

Even the parts of him that are yelling at us, “NO! THOSE ARE BAD WORDS!”

My little monkey.

I love him so much.