A very funny piece in The Onion, from the perspective of an 18-month-old, entitled “You Don’t Get To Be As Old As I Am Without Knowing A a Few Things About Basic Shapes And Colors”…
You make mistakes, sure, but that’s how you learn. One day, you embarrass yourself by calling the color blue “yellow” in front of everybody you know. But then a month or two later, you’re an old pro. You know that blue is “blue” and yellow is “yellow” without even having to think about it. Believe you me, pal, when you’re pushing the big 2, that kind of stuff is second nature.
But it didn’t come easy. It took time to get there. For weeks and weeks, I pored over every board book I had on the subject, stopping only to chew the corner of a page now and then. You might look at me today and see a guy who knows right away when something is purple, but I haven’t always been this savvy. I once had a new pair of jammies for a month before the fact that they were purple even dawned on me. Nowadays, though, I’ll trot into the living room nude, hoist them over my head, and tell you exactly what color they are.