Fun with Words

Since Vincent started school last fall, his vocabulary has really gotten impressive with each passing week. He's even starting to teach me words.

Now I fancy myself a bit of a wordsmith. I mean, I have this here blog (not that that counts for much) and I've been known to write for hire from time to time. But for some reason, the word chrysalis hadn't really entered my life. I remembered a record label popular in the 70s and 80s with that name, but that was it.

Vincent came home from school one day during "Butterfly Week" and sang us the following song he learned (to the melody of "Itsy Bitsy Spider"):

Little caterpillar looking for some lunch

Crawling through the leaves. Munch, munch munch

Spun a chrysalis, wrapped himself inside

When he awoke he was a beautiful butterfly

I looked at Rose and said, "Did he say chrysalis?" She nodded, wide-eyed as if to say, "CAN YOU BELIEVE HE KNOWS THAT WORD? HE'S 3 YEARS OLD!" A couple days later, I called my Mom to check in while she was babysitting and she said, "Do you know he knows the word 'chryslais?!' He sang his butterfly song and Dad nearly fell over!"

The kid is just knocking people out with this. And he's not even showing off. He just sings it when it pops into his head and rolls right through that beautiful word as if it's nothing. That's what makes it awesome. I get excited for the next words he comes home with. Extrapolate? Malfeasance? Bricabrac?

The possiblities are amaranthine.