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.