Language

We had a parent-teacher meeting last night. We made arrangements with the parents of another little boy to watch their son while they were in for their interview, and they watched Ben while we were in. The boys played together outside for the 30 minutes or so that one or the other set of parents were inside. Usually, the children play a variation of "Good guy, Bad guy" where one chases the other around, or "Dragon" or "Monster" where they both pretend to be chased and hide together under the climbing structure. The role assignment for these games sounds something like this: "YOU ARE THE BAD GUY AND I AM THE GOOD GUY - CHASE ME! - AAAAAAHHHHHH" and they both run around screeching at the top of their lungs.

Last night, all was going smoothly for the first 15 minutes while Andrew and I were inside with the teacher, and the next 5 minutes while the other little boy's parents were in for their interview with the teacher.

Then things deteriorated.

They both started lying on the ground, unmoving. Ben was putting rocks in his mouth. The other little boy lied on top of Benjamin and refused to get up, even when Ben started screaming and crying. We tried to make light of it: "Little boy, you are squishing Ben like a pancake! (insert fake chuckle here)... please get up off of Benjamin." We picked them both up. Ben laid back down on the ground. The other little boy laid on top of him again... you can probably imagine how eager we were for the mommies to come back out so we could go home for supper!

I'm getting to the language part.

As we were driving off, Andrew said "That kid was a real pain in the butt!"
Ben hears this and says "No he's not!"
Ben continues "He's not peanut butter. He's a little boy!"

Phew.

This morning, the role assignment went like this:
Ben: "Little boy, I'm a pancake! Chase me! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH"