The coolest crash up derby in the world.

Scintillating conversation is not normally something you expect from a 2 year old, but sometimes you can get some amazing things to come out of the mouths of these almost talkers. Ethan, for example, is great at having conversations. The problem is that the person he is having the conversation with is generally completely unaware of what the hell is going on. I had this experience the other night at dinner.

I was putting Ethan into his seat for dinner when he said, "Foamers."

"What?" I asked, looking around his seat for something he might have dropped. With a 2 year old, context clues are everything.

"Foamers," he said again, this time pointing in the general vicinity of the rest of the house. Precision is not something he is known for.

Seeing nothing around on the floor or on the table that could be described as a 'foamer', I turned to my wife. "Jen? What is a 'foamer'?"

"No clue," she said. "He's been saying that all day."

I asked the same question of my oldest son, and he replied, "I think he means 'Transformer'. He loves his new shoes."

"Foamer shoes," said Ethan smiling, pointing at the rest of the house again. He has some new shoes that have Bumblebee, one of the Transformers, on the sides and back, and Ryan is right in stating that Ethan loves them.

"Do you want to wear your new shoes?" I asked.

Smiling and nodding vigorously, he replied, "Foamer shoes. Outside."

Another mystery solved. "Ok. After dinner we'll go outside and you can wear your new shoes. Does that sound good?"

Another vigorous nod and smile, followed by a single word, "Fants."

Feeling on firmer ground with this cryptic clue, I told him, "No, there are no elephants outside at our house. You don't have to worry."

"Scared. Elfants," he said. Then, pointing at the rest of the house agian,"Foamer shoes."

"Elephants are not going to eat your new shoes."

"Scared. Roars."

"There are no dinosaurs either."

"Elfants. Roars. Foamer Shoes. Crash derby."

The first three seemed to make sense, but I was at a loss to explain the "crash derby" reference. I know he had been to the crash-up derby at the fair with Nonnie and Papa a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it, but I am fairly certain that there were no elephants or dinosaurs involved. I wasn't there of course, so I could be wrong, but it seemed unlikely that a county fair would have the money or the desire to either bring in an elephant or genetically engineer a dinosaur. Again, I turned to my fellow codebreakers.

"Little help here," I said to both Jen and Ryan.

Ryan chimed in first. "Dad, I think he is worried that the elephants and dinosaurs are going to have a crash up derby to see who gets to have his new transformer shoes."

"That is quite a story, but I don't think that there is any way that he is thinking that."

"Ask him," Ryan said, smiling. Looking back on it, it seems that he said it smugly.

"Ok. Ethan? Are you worried that dinosaurs and elephants are going to engage in a crash up derby to see who gets your transformer shoes?"

Ethan smiled and nodded vigorously.

"Ethan?" I said. "Do you know what a crash up derby is?"

In response, he grabbed his two cars that were sitting on the table and smashed them together. "Crash derby!" he said.

"And do you know what a dinosaur is?"

"Sookis," he said, pointing outside. This is another cryptic clue that I know. "Sookis" is his word for Sarcosuccus, a 40-foot long Cretaceous crocodile. He is afraid of these, along with T. rex, Velociraptor, and cows.

"And you are worried that Sarcosuccus and an elephant are going to have a crash up derby in our backyard so that they can have your Transformers shoes. Is this right?"

Smile and vigorous nodding.

"And you still want to go outside?"

"Well, Dad, wouldn't you?" said Ryan. "That would be awesome."

Indeed it would. Then it hit me. "Ryan?"

"Yeah," he said, smiling.

"You wouldn't have told your brother that an elephant and a giant 40-foot crocodile were outside waiting for him, would you?"

Still smiling, Ryan responded, "I don't know."

As it turns out, Ryan is not as difficult to read as Ethan, and his "I don't know" is as good as a "Yes" to me.

"And you also told him that they wanted his new shoes, right?"

"I don't know." Smile.

"Please don't scare him with stories like that in the future, ok?"

"Ok." Smile.

Clearly this isn't the last time Ethan will be messed with in this manner, but at least this time Ryan basically admitted to it. The next time won't be so easy.

So after dinner we put on Ethan's Transformers shoes, convinced him that Sarcosuccus was still extinct and wasn't going to be in our backyard, that elephants still only lived on other continents, and that there were no cows that we knew of out grazing in the dog run, and stepped outside to enjoy the evening.

Fun at the Park

Ah, the park. One of natures greatest inventions, so full of bark, slides, swings, and strange screeching children. The Doyle Boys love going to the park, sometimes so much that they are willing to injure each other to get to one.

Allow me to explain.

The other night, Ryan and Ethan were playing outside when the metaphorical dinner bell rang and they had to come in and wash their hands. Ryan was unhappy that his playtime was cut short and asked if we might be able to go to a park after dinner. Jen and I both thought that his was a good idea, but we wanted to hold it out as a reward to increase the possibility that there would be no incidents during dinner. So we promised the little ones that if dinner went well we would go to a park. This went over fairly well, as did dinner. After dinner, however, things turned for the worse when Ryan and Ethan, in their excitement to go to the park, started running around the house jumping into each other and, in general, having a fairly good time. We tried to put an end to this, but short of physical restraint nothing was working. Eventually their boisterous play ended badly when both ended up injured after one body slam too many and we had to put off the park until the next day. This resulted in many tears due partly to the impact injuries but mostly due to the loss of the park for the evening.

The next morning, though, I surprised the boys by telling them that we would go to one of the big parks in the area. This particular park is basically 2 medium sized parks merged into one giant mecca of playtime fun. It also has a decent sized pond with walking trails, ducks, birds, and other fun nature things. There were, it must be said, no elephants or giant prehistoric crocodiles despite Ethan's testimony when we got back home.

After a relatively uneventful half hour of playing on the slides and jumping around in the sandbox, I asked if they wanted to cruise down the trail and around the pond. Both boys shouted their approval and off we went, Ryan at a run, me at a walk, and Ethan at a run/walk/complete stop/walk the wrong way back to the swings/run away from me when I tried to catch him/walk again. This particular trail starts up on a fairly steep hill and follows a switchback route to get to the bottom. From the top of this trail the entire pond is visible, as are the various bridges, paths, and open spaces surrounding it. It is rather beautiful, but Ethan didn't waste any time protesting.

"Scared," he said, pointing to the open land to the east of the pond. "Elfants."

Confused, I asked him to clarify. "Are you scared of Elephants?"

He nodded and pointed again. "Scared. Elfants."

Ryan joined the conversation and tried to be helpful. "But Ethan, there are no elephants out there. Do you see any Elephants?"

"Scared." Point. "Elfants." Point Hard.

"No," Ryan said again. "No elephants!"

"ELFANTS!" yelled Ethan.

I could see that this was going to go nowhere, so I just said, "Why doesn't Daddy pick you up, and we'll go show you that there are no elephants here, ok?"

Ethan paused for a second while he appeared to think it over, nodded, and put his arms up in the universal childhood symbol of "pick me up". I grabbed him, and set off again down the path. I kept reassuring him that there were no elephants down there, that elephants did not live in this area, and even if for some reason one or two relocated from their African or Asian homeland (I'm not sure which type of elephant he imagines is down there) they would be very visible due to the fact that they are the largest land animals around.

When we got to the bottom of the path, Ryan led the way ("Just like Nigel Marvin, I'm in search of giant dinosaurs...") and Ethan squirmed to be put down. I obliged and we followed our tour guide.

"I've been here many times, Dad, so you just follow me and we'll be ok."

"OK," I said, "but just be careful not to get too close to the water, and watch out for ducks and geese."

"Why?" Ryan asked. "They're not that big. And they are kinda slow."

"Sure, ducks are small won't normally do anything, but geese can be big and will bite if they feel that they are in danger."

Ryan turns around, looks me right in the eye and calmly says, "I'll fight a goose."

Trying hard, and mostly failing, to suppress a laugh, I said, "Really?"

"Really."

"Fight Goose!" said Ethan, flailing about with his legs and hands in his best Power Ranger impression. "Quack!"

The time had come to lay down the law. "Ok - No one is going to fight any animals while we are here, understand?"

"Why not?" asked Ryan.

"Fight Animals!" said Ethan.

"Because," I said pushing on, "this is where they live. You wouldn't want an animal to come into your house and try and fight you, would you?"

Ryan thought for a second. "No, but if a goose ever comes to my house, I can fight it then, right?"

"Right. You can fight a goose if it comes into the house."

I bet you don't have to have this conversation with little girls.

The rest of the walk went well and we eventually made it back home. And Ryan was a little disappointed to see that in our absence no geese had invaded our house.