Stubborn as a Green Mule

Aaron is stubborn.

I can be quite stubborn when I need to be.

So, by all rights, we shouldn’t have a kid as much as a mule.

(You saw what I did there, right? Because “kid” is the name of a baby goat, which is also a type of animal, so it’s funny because…oh never mind. My co-workers keep telling me that if I have to explain my jokes, they aren’t really jokes at all. Sorry. Here is a picture of a cute child to make you forget all about it.)

But Eamon…he isn’t terribly stubborn.

Consider, for instance, the dinosaurs. Eamon, as the more savvy readers out there might have inferred from my cryptic clues, kind of “likes” dinosaurs (you know, in the same way that he sort of “likes” food and sleep and air). When I try to get Eamon out of the door in the morning to go to my parents’, he often tries to take his entire bucket of dinosaurs. And if you don’t let him, he cries this miserable, whiny little cry.

“Eh heh, eh heh,” he cries melodramatically, as if you have told him that his dog has to go live on a “farm.” He cries the entire way out the door. “Eh heh, eh heh, deedore, deedore!” He cries as you buckle him into his carseat. “Eh heh, eh heh, eh heh!”

And then you turn on the music…and he starts to dance or “sing” or pretend to make his Lion dance or sing. Deedores? Huh?

In contrast, by Eamon’s age I was apparently throwing temper tantrums in which I would scream for 2 hours, following my mother from room to room crying at the top of my lungs, throwing myself onto the floor dramatically until, exhausted, I would finally pass out, sleep, and wake up like it had never happened. My mother never gave in, and she never did anything to encourage it…I just had a temper and once I lost it, I couldn’t be coaxed back. Around the age of 5, I finally learned enough control and figured out that golly, these temper tantrums never seemed to work, and I stopped. Nevertheless, it was a hard won war for my poor parents.

Now, Eamon might just be a late bloomer…but so far, he just doesn’t have that level of stubbornness in him.

Except for one thing: colors.

Eamon does not want to learn his colors. Oh yes, he’s knows his entire alphabet. He knows what sounds all the letter make, and for some of his letters, can even tell you a word that starts with that letter. He can recognize all his numbers through 9. He knows all his animals and can make sounds for most of them. He recognizes and can name most shapes. He’s a smart kid.

But everything? Everything? Everything in the entire world is: green.

Go ahead, ask Eamon. The grass, the sky, the cars, my hair, Eamon’s skin, the dog? They are all green.

Oh, I know what you’re going to say. “Maybe he’s color blind, Kate? Maybe you’re being too hard on this poor little color blind kid?”

He’s not color blind. I am 97.85% sure of this. One day a few months ago, we were in my friend Charmaine’s classroom. She has a SMARTBoard (an interactive whiteboard and projects whatever is on your computer) and it has 4 markers, which all look exactly the same except for being four different colors: red, green, black, and blue. They go into 4 separate bins that also all look exactly the same, except for each being red, green, black, or blue.

While we were in Charmaine’s room, Eamon found the markers and immediately removed them from their color-coded bins. He mixed them all up, and then without hesitation put them back in their correct bins. He did this about nine times in a row. There is no way that he could have known which marker went in which bin except to be able to see the colors. This was not coincidence.

But even that doesn’t convince you of his stubbornness on this one issue, how about this? We have a red RAV-4. This is an actual conversation he and I had yesterday in the parking lot.

ME: Eamon, look, there’s our red car. Our car is red. Can you tell me what color our car is?
EAMON: Gween!
ME: No, baby. Our car is red. We have a red car. What color is our car?
EAMON: Gween!
ME: No, Eamon. It’s red. Can you say “red?”
EAMON: Wed!
ME: Great! You said red! Just like our car! Our car is red. What color is our car?
EAMON: Gween!

I gave up after that.

At some point, he’ll decide he wants to learn his colors.

Right?