What shall we name tonight?

Each night, after reading books and singing songs, we snuggle up, with the lights out, and name things. But you can do this at any time of day. The point of this exercise is simply to have fun with categories. #1 (The Painter) took to this ritual from the start, when he was about two.

What do we name? Children love to name things they're familiar with. Sometimes this gets obsessive. The Painter went through a phase of naming colors. Sometimes I'd choose the category to name, sometimes he would. But for months, it seemed, he would ask to name things like balls, or balloons, or fans, then say red fans, blue fans, green fans or pink balls, silver balls... and so it went.

But you can name just about anything: round things, things that are red, rooms in the house, words that start with "m", things we can eat, friends' names... Tonight we named parts of a tree. It's always fun when you can slip in some unfamiliar things along with the familiar, a teaching moment. Tonight it went like this:

Painter: a tree stump
Me: Yeah, and the trunk of a tree
Painter: and leaves
Me: uh huh... and the branches... what's on the outside of a tree? The brown part...
Painter: yeah...
Me: It's called the bark... and the white part inside is called the pith.
Painter: and the seed pods...
Me: That's right, or the fruit. Seed pods are when there isn't any fruit... and the seeds inside... and the crown... that's the top of the tree... and the roots, they go in the ground, and draw the moisture and the nutrients for the tree.
Painter: ... I think I'm all tree-parted out.
Me: Me too.