a penny for your thoughts?

This happened over 3 years ago. Erum was about 2.5 or 3 years old. She had been carrying this little round container that dispensed many feet of chewing gum. I started to tease her early in the day about how chewing gum “wasn’t good for you”. She clearly chose to ignore my advice and continued chewing.

Later in the day she walked into my room and we started talking. At some point I tried to steer the conversation back to how chewing gum wasn’t a good thing.

“Acha, aap yeh batao ke aap gum kyun khate? Nahin khana ji, achi cheez nahi hoti”, I said. Okay, so tell me why you chew gum? You really shouldn’t, it’s not good for you.

“Hmmm… aap gum khate?”, she fired back. Hmmm… do you chew gum?

“Ummm… nahin khate.”, I say to tease her (of course I chew gum). Ummm… I don’t.

“Agar aap gum taste nahin karenge to aap ko flavour kaisa pata chalinga? Hum ko flavour pasand.” If you don’t taste gum then how can you know the flavour? I like the flavour.

I sat there stunned for a few seconds. Did this two and a half year old just tell me about the taste and flavour of gum? Not only that, she lead me through to the point where she explained to me why she chews gum. She didn’t just say that she liked the flavour. She first asked me if I chewed gum. She completely blew me away. Wow.

Just that thought process, I find it absolutely fascinating. What was she thinking?

not in all the world is copper mint
to match the way in which you think