Digesting Daniel : "Ergo"
"Love you, Mum" said Daniel, popping his head around the door.
"Love you too, my darling" I said, glancing up briefly, then looking back down at what I was busy with.
"I love you more " he said, stepping around now and leaning into the doorway - baiting for my full attention. So I stopped concentrating on what I was doing, accepted the challenge, and gave him complete focus. This was going to be fun...
"No you don't. I've been on this earth for a longer time than you have, ergo... I love you more..." I said, illogically.
He looked at me for a minute, absorbing what I had said - his mind processing the context of this un-encountered word, "ergo", and replacing it with a logical alternative to define its meaning. He does that. If he comes across a new and interesting word he likes the sound of, (and he was clearly delighted with the sound of "ergo"), he never just asks - "What does that word mean?" He always analyses its context in the sentence first, and tries to work out its meaning for himself... then he'll casually throw it out there in conversation, all nonchalant-like - as if he's never not known its meaning...
"You know the length of the distance between here and Pluto?" he asked finally.
I nodded enthusiastically - with no clue what the length of the distance between here and Pluto may be.
"Well. I love you a million, billion times longer than that. Ergo..." he said. With dramatic pause. For maximum impact - "I love you more."
That made me smile - for lots of reasons. "Well..." I said, "you know the length of the distance between here and another universe far beyond ours?"
Grinning back at me, he nodded with an eager assertion as uninformed as my own had been.
"I love you a trazillion, bazillion, gazillion times longer than that, ergo... I love you more."
His grin got bigger, and he shook his head at me with a mixture of sympathy and victorious glee... "Too many words Mum ! Less is more - remember? So... you know Infinity?" he said, "Well... I love you octozillion that! Ergo... I love YOU more." And he marched off triumphantly.
Triumphant on 2 counts I thought to myself - all motherly-proud that this worthy opponent was my youngest son.
Oh... make that 3 counts. The next morning as we ate breakfast, he looked at me and said, "Mum, remember how much I loved you yesterday...?" I nodded, with bemused but informed assertion this time... "Well", he continued, " time has passed and I've been on this earth a little longer now... ergo..."
