Listmaking I

I once had a co-worker who was into keeping mental lists. It was a small office so I saw enough of him over the course of a couple years that it became amusing to me. If you talked to him one day about U.S. policy in South America, he might suddenly stop you and proclaim you to be "one of the 10 smartest people I know." Interests outside his sphere of knowledge might earn you a spot on the "10 most interesting people I know" list, and so on.

Lately, with four year old Owen in list-making overdrive, I feel like I am back in that office 24/7. With Deanna out of town for 3 nights last week and 3 nights this week, I have been peppered with lists and, more often, demands for my own lists. These range from the mundane (my favorite color: burgundy), to the thought provoking (my "unfavoritest color": yellow), to the bizarre (my favorite Mazda: who has a favorite Mazda?? I suppose some people do, but I lamely offered up the RX-7, which I thought was very cool 20 years ago, and which I am unsure is even in production anymore). Categorizing things through lists is an interesting and manageable way for a kid who is learning more about the wider world every day to organize his thoughts on various subjects and to learn from others. Owen has an elaborate and ever changing list of his favorite colors, which I currently believe runs along the lines of red (always number 1, for its "fastness"), grey (he copied my 2nd favorite - very flattering), blue, orange, purple, pink, gold, silver, and on down to his unfavoritest color of white. I haven't taken on the challenge of explaining the whole "white as absence of color" concept to him, as who needs that at age 4.