Conundrum.

Kids say the funniest things.

While babysitting the other night, I had to explain to Brody, age five, what the word "conundrum" meant--which he then applied to a real life situation, as you will see further on in the story.

The word had slipped out of my mouth, while I was talking to Brody's baby brother, Brenner, a newly adopted 21 month old Ethiopian baby. Brenner was insistent on reaching for my food, though he had his own bowl of mashed up bananas in front of him--which was his second option, since he rejected his mom's chicken noodle soup. "This is my grown-up food, Brenner," I tried to explain, but Brenner responded with an indignant, "No," followed by some gibberish. Angry gibberish. "Well, what a conundrum we have," I sighed as I tried to think of a more creative way to get Brenner to eat his mush. Brody, who had been engrossed in the construction of his new Lego police airplane, immediately piped in:

"Hey! What does that mean?"
"Hey, what does what mean?"
"Co..non...Conunderum?"
"Conundrum?"
"yeah, co-coh-nonde...rum."
"Um, people say it when there is a problem. Like Brenner not wanting to eat right now. That is a conundrum."
"Co-nun-derum."
"Yeah...and..."
"There! finished," Brody beamed proudly, as he placed the last piece of lego on his airplane. Seeing that Brody was more interested in his plane than a vocabulary lesson from his baby-sitter, I dropped the subject and once again, turned my attention to Brenner.

I decided to let Brenner out of his high chair since he didn't seem to0 hungry at the moment, trusting that when he did get hungry, he would eat his mush happily. As soon as Brenner's feet touched the floor, he made a bee-line for his brother's newly constructed Lego airplane and "CRASH!" with one fell swoop, Brenner knocked the plane onto the floor. I quickly looked at Brody, who looked more shocked than he was angry, and then I looked at Brenner, who was smiling awkwardly, knowing he had done something bad. Before I could say anything, however, Brody screamed, at the top of his lungs, "CONUNDERUM! Brenner! CO-NUN-DUN-DERUM!!!"