Talented eyes and faulty brains

Edith recently said something about a food having a blue flavor, so the other night Tom decided to press her on the synesthesia issue.

"What color is 'left'?" he asked her, as we were lying in her bed at bedtime.

"Green," she said promptly. I said I agreed.

"What color is 'right'?" he asked her.

"Red," she replied, while I countered that it was yellow.

"What color is May?" I asked, deciding to try a realm in which my own color synesthesia isn't really operative.

"May is red, and April is orange," she said promptly.

"What about Sunday?" Tom asked. "Does it have a color?" I was skeptical that it would, since she doesn't have a very strong sense of the days of the week yet.

"No," she said. Then added, "Just bright white light."

Now it all could have been four-year-old complicity in nonsense talk, but Edith didn't seem in any way puzzled by these questions or hesitant about what the answers might be.

Tom explained to her that he had to ask about these colors that she and Mommy saw, because he didn't see them and wanted to learn more about them.

"I think Mommy and I have talented eyes," she said.

***

We're a little less pleased with her talented toes. Last week Edith figured out that by stretching out her leg, she could use her big toe to push the button that lowers her car window. This was an accidental discovery of the most surprising and pleasing kind. That newfound ability has turned out to be one more reason for her to pull off her socks and shoes as soon as we begin a car trip, no matter how short the trip or how eager she is to arrive at our destination.

***

Speaking of the car, we're starting to get a few reprieves from constant storytelling en route, as Edith takes time now and then to stare out the window and think her own thoughts. We get only flashes of insight into where those thoughts are leading her when she pipes up with the occasional question. Her most recent: "What does hair dye look like at the store?"

Maybe synesthesia isn't coloring Edith's world richly enough.

***

Last week was "Y" week at preschool, and Edith was trying to think of something to bring for show-and-share. My collegiate baseball caps were rejected out of hand.

"What about your younger sister?" Tom asked.

"No," said Edith. "Now that she's learning how to roll, she might roll out of my cubby and get hurt."

***

We've developed a little family joke about Edith's ability to find things around the house. When we send her after something she's seeking, she'll all too often breeze into the room to which we've directed her, then return immediately declaring she can't find the desired object. We then go back with her to the specified location only to put our hands directly on the object lying right where we'd said it would be.

On one such occasion, either Tom or I told her in frustration that she sure didn't look very well. Edith subsequently tried her version of this phrase on Tom at one point when he failed to find something: "Gee, Dad, you're sure not a very good looker!"

Since then, Tom and I have teasingly told Edith whenever she fails to find something in plain sight that she's "sure not a very good looker!"

Then the other day she asked where her sneakers were, and we told her they were in the kitchen, on the chair by the door.

She ran in there and returned right away, saying they weren't there. Tom said that they indeed were there and went back to the kitchen with her. "Oh wait," he said. "They're in your room. I already brought them back to your closet."

Declared Edith, "Gee, guys, you're sure not very good thinkers!"