Just how much kids pick up from the world around them is amazing. Each day some new words are added to their vocabularies, used correctly and leave parents asking just when did this happen. By way of explanation a few recent examples from our 2-year-old.

As she was exploring the office she picked up something breakable. “We need to be careful with that,” I reminded her.

“Because it’s fragile?” she asked. Now the pronunciation was a little more like frag-gile but the meaning was clear. As she went on exploring I wondered where along the way she had added fragile to her vocabulary.

While vocabulary is part of it kids also notice far more than we imagine. Recently she came excitedly into the office and rattled off a story. With excitement taking the place of usually good speech it was left to just a few words that were intelligible. Mom, broken and glue were the three that made it through. As she was in the other room working with mom on something that seemed reasonable. A few minutes later mom joined us and Rosalind told her story a little more calmly. She was in search of glue to repair the broken tail on one of her model horses.

A little glue for a model horse is not exactly surprising. What was more surprising, however, was what happened when I asked her why she came to ask me in the office. “Because the glue is in here,” she said.

“Can you show me?” I asked, not knowing of any glue in the office. Without hesitation she walks to the boxes with moving left-overs, extracts a Lowes bag and in it a box with a tube of Gorilla Glue inside. The glue had been purchased as an option on a repair project. When the wood glue did the job it lay unused in the box. Neither Sarah nor I remembered it was there but Rosalind knew right where to go.

In much the same way she danced into the office one evening as I was working and asked “Daddy can I get married?”

That is the type of question, when coming from a two-year-old, you don’t quite think you heard correctly. So several times I had her repeat it and several times she said the same thing. It seems she had been looking at pictures from our wedding and saw her mother’s beautiful wedding dress and wanted to wear a dress so beautiful herself. Thinking quickly I came up with a reasonable response.

“Honey you can get married but you have to promise me you’ll wait 45 years,” I said.

“OK, daddy,” she replied.

“Shall we shake on it?” I asked and we shook on it.

Any eligible bachelors in 2055 be sure to look us up. Now if I can just find that contracts attorney to make sure this agreement is binding.