Literally...half dead
#3 tends to take things very literally. If you say something to him, you had better be prepared to mean what you say, or to back it up with fact. He doesn't have a firm grasp on sarcasm, and I am not sure he ever will. It is one of his more frustrating, and yet sometimes endearing qualities. He is also known for frequently asking questions, some of which are not the easiest in the world to answer. I think he could confuse a person with a PhD.
A week or so ago we were in the car, on our way home from Vancouver. Its close to a two hour drive from there, which gives #3 a lot of time to interrupt my singing along to a favorite song to ask a question (hmm...maybe he doesn't like my singing...).
This time his question was...
"What would happen if you were half dead?"
We were kind of stumped on that, and tried to explain it as a figure of speech that doesn't mean death really, just a close proximity to it. (I don't remember what we said exactly, I only wrote down his questions...I'll do better next time.)
He responded to our explanation with this..."So if you're only half dead you're still alive?"
We affirmed this...
"So if you're half dead you hop on one foot? And you only use one eye? And only half your heart?"
I gave up about this point. I had to start writing down the conversation. In his mind half dead literally means what it says, you can only use half of your body because the other half is dead. He is a unique child in our family because I am pretty sure I could explain it to any of the other boys, but #3 gets stuck on the details. Why WOULD they call if half dead if that is not what they meant?
A week or so ago we were in the car, on our way home from Vancouver. Its close to a two hour drive from there, which gives #3 a lot of time to interrupt my singing along to a favorite song to ask a question (hmm...maybe he doesn't like my singing...).
This time his question was...
"What would happen if you were half dead?"
We were kind of stumped on that, and tried to explain it as a figure of speech that doesn't mean death really, just a close proximity to it. (I don't remember what we said exactly, I only wrote down his questions...I'll do better next time.)
He responded to our explanation with this..."So if you're only half dead you're still alive?"
We affirmed this...
"So if you're half dead you hop on one foot? And you only use one eye? And only half your heart?"
I gave up about this point. I had to start writing down the conversation. In his mind half dead literally means what it says, you can only use half of your body because the other half is dead. He is a unique child in our family because I am pretty sure I could explain it to any of the other boys, but #3 gets stuck on the details. Why WOULD they call if half dead if that is not what they meant?
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