Non Sequitur

Amy recently posted about the joy of insight into a child's mind that accompanies their discovery of speech. Josh has been speaking for some time now. He has a few distinctive artifacts in his speech, such as his rounded "R's" that make him sound like he comes from New England, or his tiny lisp. Overall, though, his speech has improved quite a bit as he's gotten older, and it can be enjoyable to converse with him.

Conversation with Josh is entertaining, for he has mastered the art of the non sequitur: a statement that seems to derive from no particular premise. We assume that there is (in fact) some stream of reasoning that has gone on in his head beforehand, but we don't actually participate in that reasoning.

His most frequent non sequiturs begin, "next time we go to Disneyland...," and then proceed into a line-item account of the attractions we will visit during our next Disneyland excursion. Typically, the list includes the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, Winnie the Pooh, and Buzz Lightyear. According to Josh, all trips to Disneyland must begin first with a trip to the Elmo carwash (one of my most successful efforts to distract the children from their fear in something, in this case, fear of the carwash by turning it into something fun) followed by a trip to McDonald's (a family tradition since Amy and I began taking road trips when we were dating).

Other non sequiturs suggest Josh's understanding of the state of affairs in the world, even when there is no basis in fact for that understanding. Recently, we hosted the missionaries for dinner. Josh put on a fabuluous show. Come dessert, Josh enumerated for Benjamin the various toppings he could have on his ice cream. With a Vanna White twist of his hand, he rolled out the options, "you can have straaaawbeeeyies, or blaaaackk,..." We did not have strawberries, and never suggested that we had, and I'm at a loss as to what "black" indicated. Ultimately, he and everyone else seemed to be satisfied with Hershey's chocolate syrup.

Whatever the source, Josh's non sequiturs reveal a mind filled with sweetness and fantasy. His is a mind that is charmed with the world and all of its wonders. He captures the simple pleasures of the world around him, and creates his own little Wonderland from them. It's a treat that he so willingly shares this Wonderland with us when he speaks.