Or So I Thought...

Last night my preschooler was "reading" one of his latest favorites, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." For those of you not familiar with the book, all of the letters of the alphabet go up the coconut tree until the massive weight of them causes all to plummet to the earth. Some letters invite others to "meet" at the top of the tree, while others offer the challenge of "beat"-ing other letters to the top.

I don't want to ruin the ending, so I'll just continue with the point of my story. Since my son was "reading" it by memory, the words he recited reflected his interpretation of the story, or that is, the words he thinks he hears when someone reads the story to him. At first it goes, "A told B and B told C, I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree." But in my son's violent re-telling, he recites, "A told B and B told C, I'll beat you at the top of the coconut tree." Yikes! Who knew A and B were such aggressive letters? I guess that's why they're first.

On the next page, after shrieking gleefully, D challenges E, F, and G to a race up the tree. But in my son's rendition: "Whee, says D, to E, F, G, I'll beat you to the cop of the coconut tree." Well, obviously there is a cop at the top. He's there collecting witness accounts of the butt-whooping A and B delivered to C.

Anyway, I'm sure once he actually reads, he'll figure out the more politically correct version of the coconut tree. His recitation reminded me of misconceptions I had as a kid. Things I thought I had straight in my mind but were really way off-base. For example, I thought the phrase "next door" was actually "next store," and I couldn't understand why we referred to other houses as stores. And speaking of houses, I was nearly certain that the house numbered one on our street was the first house ever built, and that's why it was assigned a one. Goes to show you how small a kid's world is. But I couldn't get it entirely straight in my mind because I considered that tee-pees were the first "houses" built, and how could this neighbor of mine have the first house ever built because it was not a tee-pee? Wow, sort of makes the whole coconut tree debacle seem not-so-crazy.