The Fine Game of Nil

The Boy is currently smack in the middle of the terrific twos, and has been learning to assert his new found sense of independence something fierce.  Lately he’s been experimenting with misrepresenting reality to try and get his way, and really, I’m pretty impressed with it.  Since November we’ve been commuting to a daycare in town via the T (Boston’s public transit).  On the way home we can either go bus to the red line, or green line to red line.  The green line takes a bit longer but is all train travel, and Liam seems to have inherited Dad’s disdain for buses.  On the way out of daycare we usually stand on the bridge over the green line and take whatever comes first, bus or train.  Liam initially started saying “No bus. Train!” and trying to direct us down the stairs to get on the train.  Recently, he noticed that on walk to the bridge, Emily and I watch the interchange a couple of blocks away to see if a bus is stopped at the light.  From that he got the idea to call out “I don’t see a bus” in the hope that we’d go down to the train instead.  Today, on the walk to the bridge he told me “No bus”, then explained “The bus is broken”.  I have to say, I’m pretty impressed.  If I remember my cognitive development textbooks at all, creative deceit is a relatively advanced skill.  My hope is that by next month he’ll have moved up to direct acts of sabotage against the #47 crosstown.