Friday, June 13, 2008

categories

Julianna is working on the whole idea of categories and it is so fun to watch her little mind at work. You can almost see it churning away as it tries to 'organize' and 'categorize' her rapidly expanding bits of information.

She loves to talk about "things with wings" like birds, and airplanes, and butterflies. Sometimes she likes to include herself in this particular category - with statements like "when I have wings I can fly" - and today she assured me that her daddy was most definitely not a member of the "things that have wings" category.

For the most part, she gets her facts straight (although sometimes I think she deliberately tries to trip me up - like when she suggests that lollipops are a type of breakfast food). But, other times, she gets stuff all mixed up. A few days ago she was telling me about statues... and it went a bit like this:

J: Statues do not have eyes and they are not alive. ["things that have eyes" are another favorite conversation piece] But I am alive. And so is Lydia.
Me: What about mommy? Am I alive?
J: No, mommy is not alive. She is big.

huh? How does that work out? Alive is not the opposite of big. But, as the conversation progressed, I saw her rationale. Just a few short moments later, she had turned the conversation and was chattering away about babies. In her book, alive = just born = little.

She's also learning hard 'category' lessons. Like, "folks that you must learn to obey" does not include herself. Bummer.

3 comments:

Patt said...

Isn't the young mind fascinating?! You were precocious too - always testing, trying, learning. You probably tried that lollipops for breakfast trick too! Love, Mom/Grandmama

Chris, Leah, Austin, Bennett and Lucy said...

I am still laughing - it really is fun to watch them grow and figure things out. Can't wait to hear some of her categorizing in person in a few weeks! Leah

Jaci said...

That's cute. It would be fun to hear her chatter away! Thanks for sharing these cute details of your little girl:-)