Infallibility

As with most of the behavior that I note in my boisterous charges, I have no idea what the doctors think it means or what the clinical names are. All I knows is what I sees. And one of the chief conversational factors that sets Declan apart from most humans is that when he hears something he doesn't like, he denies it.

So maybe he's not that different from most people after all.

If Declan is playing with Thomas and James [two favorite trains] and wants Scruffy [a third favorite train], he'll ask me for it. That's not odd. If I don't know where Scruffy is, I'll say, "I don't know where Scruffy is." That's not odd. What's neat is what he says next: "Yes you do!"

It's neat in the way that a lot of what comes out of him is neat – it's an unvarnished, egoless take on what any of us might say if we hadn't learned about the world. When a cop pulls me over and I know I was speeding [which seems like once a week, these days], it would feel good to say "I wasn't speeding and you should go away!" and have it be, y'know, true. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

What I don't know is whether he's placing faith in my omnipotence or his own. When he insists that what he sees isn't what's real, is he talking because I'm the daddy and I provide? Or is he just conflating what he doesn't want with what shouldn't be and the only verb tense he knows is it isn't?