Being a hominid is bad. Who knew?

I was out walking the dog with Ryan the other day in the glorious 50+ degree weather we are having. After finding out that, at preschool, he has been playing with his friends, learning about clouds, and that the toy cash register needs batteries, we started talking about Daisy, our dog.

“Daisy is a good girl,” he says, forgetting that she nipped him the other day and that at the time he asked if he could put her in the garbage.

“Yep. She is normally a good girl,” I reply.

“She is so cute.”

“Yep. Cute as a button,” I say. “Just like you.”

“I’m not like a dog, Dad.”

“Sure you are. You have 4 feet, right?”

“Nope. Two hands and 2 feet. Not four feet.”

“Well, you are both tetrapods, aren’t you?” I ask this trying to refresh his memory of earlier conversations.

“Oh. Yep. We’re both tetrapods. 1-2-3-4.”

“See? You are just like a dog.” Now I am just messing with him. “Soon you’ll be barking and eating your food out of a bowl.”

“I am not a dog!” he says, sort of laughing.

“Sure. You are not just LIKE a dog, you are a dog.”

“NO,” he yells, “You are a DOG!”

“I am not a dog,” I say, reaching down and tickling his belly, “you are!” This goes on, back and forth, for a while.

So I managed to take what was an enlightening conversation with my son in which I was learning about his time at preschool and his friends, and turn it into a “You’re a dog!”, “No, YOU ARE!” back and forth. Yep, I am a great dad.

This morning after Ryan woke up and had his breakfast, I started with the “You’re a dog” thing and he returned with “No, you’re a squirrel!”

What? That’s not the game. He apparently forgot the rules during the night.

“No, you are a dog!” I say, hoping to get it back on track.

“You’re a jellyfish!” Now he is really off track. Oh well. When in Rome…

“You are an elephant!”

“No. You are a rabbit,” he says, laughing.

“Well you’re a hominid!”

“No I’m not! Wait…what?” Now he is confused.

“I said, ‘you are a hominid’. And you are.”

“No! I’m not a hominid!” Now he has switched from joking to being pissed.

“Yeah, you really are. All humans are hominids.”

“Not a hominid!” He is adamant that he is not a hominid. This is sort of reminiscent of the “It’s NOT DIGITAL!” argument I had with him when he was 2. Poor kid. But, I can’t back down because it is true. He is a hominid, as are all humans.

Now Jen gets involved. “What are you telling the boy now?”

Crap. Now I am busted for messing with the kid. “Just that he is a hominid,” I say.

“What is a hominid?” she asks.

“You know… humans, Neanderthals, and other human ancestors. It really isn’t anything bad.”

“No, I don’t know, and neither does he. Quit messing with him.”

So I had to stop for that day.

Now whenever I tell him that he is a hominid, he gets angry. He even is projecting his feelings onto other people. This morning, I told him that not only was he a hominid, but so was Ethan. He got upset and said I shouldn’t say that because “Ethan feels strange about that”.

Apparently my son is a creationist. I’ll need to work on that.