I give up! I do not know my child.

As a parent, I often find myself spouting off about what Mateo does and does not like. For example, he's never seemed too interested in chocolate, although loves glazed donuts. He doesn't care for super sugary things (except for the aforementioned glazed donut), and will eat a bit of a cookie or graham cracker, but loves ice cream (I just found that out last weekend).

I have realized that since he is changing on a daily basis, I must give up on knowing him in that way. That "this is my child and I know him" way.

This morning I gave Mateo a package of honey graham bunnies to eat before taking him to daycare. I was starving, so I grabbed the bag of chocolate graham bunnies to eat. I handed him his open package, opened mine, and he immediately wanted what I was having.

"It's chocolate," I said.

He looked at the dark brown bunny curiously, took it, and put it in his mouth.

"You like it? You like the chocolate?" I asked him.

He nodded his head in agreement swiftly took my bag of chocolate graham bunnies. So, being a mom who is used to this sort of thing, I took his bag of honey graham bunnies and began eating them.

"Cha-co-lat," he said. "Cha-co-lat buuuny."

Now, I think my kid is a good speaker. He's got a wide repertoire of words he uses, and some we're still figuring out (like "atches" = ashes, as in "ashes, ashes, we all fall down" - my husband always gets this but I sit there and say, "Atches? Itches? Something itches? Where does it itch?"). But he doesn't have too many polysyllabic words under his belt. We have to break up longer words into chunks for him to repeat them. And even then, we know there is no way he's going to walk away and use the word.

So I was fairly surprised that he started saying "chocolate." He was even intoning "chocolate" in goofy ways, like "cha-co-LATE!"

I gather the boy likes chocolate. Or, at least, chocolate graham bunnies.

He took the bag of chocolate graham bunnies in the car with him, and when I got him out of the car at daycare, he said, "Bye bye, cha-co-late buuunies."

How did he learn to say 'chocolate' so well? I have no idea. Just like I had no idea he would want to eat the chocolate graham bunnies. I guess I just don't know much of anything.