Toddler’s brains are like tape recorders hooked up to a Markov chain process to produce realistic-sounding sentences. Eli will say phrases that he must have picked up somewhere and stored in his immense toddler brain, waiting for the right moment to unleash them on his unsuspecting parents.

This weekend we visited my grandmother. At one point, my aunt and her two high-school-age kids were visiting. A good time was had by all. Eli especially loved one of my cousins, to whom fell the duty of Eli wrangling. “Gordon! You come play hide and seek with Eli!” “Gordon! Where Gordon go?” “GOOOOOOORDOOOOOOON!”

That night, right after they left, Eli looked up from his toys. “Those are fine people,” he said.