"Newark, Newark"

Mummy's Lego skyscraper

This Boyhattan trip thing has got me thinking a lot about comprehension. And I don't just mean that I'm still struggling to comprehend what possessed me to book a trip that requires solo trans-Atlantic travel with Louis and then jetlag the wrong direction when it really matters, i.e. when he wakes up for the 'day' at 1am just as I am nodding off....

No, what I'm really curious about is how much Louis actually comprehends about what's going on. I've been telling him we're going to New York for a while now, and he dutifully spits it back at me when asked. (Although what he actually says makes it sound more like we're going to "Newark" for five days.) He knows DJ got an "airpoplane" to New York a couple of days ago and was still "sleeping in Newark" this morning when I was trying to persuade Louis that 545am was not a good time to start the day. But what I really want to know is what he thinks "Newark" actually is?

DJ spent Sunday singing "New York, New York" to him while playing every other song on iTunes that we have with New York in the lyrics, which is quite a few. And I was hoping to buy Madagascar, which is set in Manhattan, because I thought that might be fun but clearly made a mistake thinking the HMV I popped into yesterday might actually stock something I wanted. Ahem. I digress. So instead he's had to make do with pictures of skyscrapers in old guidebooks. Not to mention building them out of Lego. Then yesterday morning he picked up the DVD box of Manhattan (I was getting in the mood), looked at the buildings on the front and (unprompted, I promise) said "Newark". Then today, when I said we (I) had to do packing, he knew it was for "Newark".

But he can't really understand that New York is a whole other city, like London, only not, and a long way away. Can he? I tried spinning the globe we have around and pointing it out, but he just thought that was a game and started spinning it faster and faster. Or perhaps he really does know what he's talking about. Who knows: maybe he'll remember his last trip there and start pointing out the sights.

Okay, so I don't really think that. But something is definitely going through his head. And on that time wasting note, I'd better go and pack because somehow I don't think his contribution - a set of mini books for his 'wow' bag - is going to be much use when we finally get there. That's assuming we both survive the flight.