the mind of Jonathan

A couple of months ago, James and I were playing a "would you rather" game, and he posed the question, "would you rather have Ethan hold his own bottle, Jonathan learn to talk, or Jonathan potty trained?" I replied that I would rather Jonathan learned to talk. He was somewhat surprised by my answer, until I explained how nice it would be if Jonathan could just tell me what he needed, rather than having it be a twenty questions game I played by myself. "Does he need to poop? Might he be hungry? Is he thirsty? Bored? Tired? Maybe his tummy hurts? Do kids get headaches? What happened more often than not is a whole rigamarole of possible solutions to possible problems that ended with a Tylenol and 2 exhausted parents. James has actually been working with him on a lot of words, and Jonathan has expanded his vocabulary very well. What I have discovered, is that the 2 year old mind is a lot simpler than I would have thought. I was standing at my dresser picking out a shirt the other day, and Jonathan burst through the door. Previously, he would have screamed some kind of "ole-oo-ugh-mim" and I would have been left scratching my head. But this time, using his new vocabulary, Jonathan could tell me exactly his frustrations. "Out!" he cried, and then he began putting up his little baby fingers. "One, two..... out!" He was furious with me for not listening the first time. I get it. Jonathan isn't allowed in my room, neither is mommy. None of this silly double standard stuff. My 2 year old is all about equality.