Riddles

When you spend a great deal of time with people who have not yet learned to articulate, you spend a great deal of time solving riddles.

"Bumfus, I wan Bumfus" no matter that it is 2:00 in the afternoon, this child is asking for breakfast.

"Mmmmmmmm! Mmmmmmmmm!" Yes, dear, there is the moon."

With instances like these, pointing and gesturing on the part of the child helps the adult figure out the solution to the problem.

Enter 10 bazillion children's toys based on TV shows, movies, computer games, books, etc., etc. They have names. The kids know the names. If I happened to be familiar with all of the TV shows, movies, computer games, books, etc., etc. I would know the names, but, even though I live life in the slow lane, I am not personally acquainted with the names of Sponge Bob Square Pants (where in the world do you put the possesive on that name?) top ten friends/enemies, nor that egg headed kid and his friends who are on Playhouse Disney at 9 am weekday mornings, nor the pals that hang out with Chuckee Cheese on stage, nor the names of the monsters that are Elmos' friends.

And as you have noticed, most of these characters are not given normal names. So when my charges expect me to know the names of each toy, I feel like the miller's daughter, trying to guess the name "Rumplestiltskin".

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