Expressive expressions

It's been a long time since I've laughed as hard as I did at dinner tonight.

First, Alex was bouncing around the living room listing the directions to gramma and grampa's. It was mostly nonsense, so I paraphrase:
"Go two blocks and turn left. The fourth turn is at the tree. [half to himself] Say it LOUD! EXCLAMATION POINT! Turn #4 to the playground...."

He and Paul had just been reading one of Alex's learn-to-read books from the Starfall people. Guess what punctuation mark and accompanying inflection came up?

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A short while later, Alex was sitting at the table and asking us for help remembering the name of a toy.

Alex: What's that weapon I use to hit things with? [wild gesturing, to demonstrate the swinging motion] It's got a green handle and purple up here and yellow at the end?
Mom: Your lightsabre?" [which is striped]
Alex: No. ... [shaking his head] No, no, no, no. That's totally wrong. It's got a green handle and I hit trees with it like this [swing] and....
Dad: You mean your shovel with the green handle and the purple spade?
Alex: Yeah! That's it! The shovel.

I cannot capture the priceless inflection "That's totally wrong," was delivered with. It was a comment dripping with dismissive nonchalance, almost disappointment, as if I hadn't even tried.

Half an hour later:
Alex: What's that weapon called again?
Dad: A shovel.
Alex: Right.

Maybe you just had to be there.

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