Red and green, lights and lizards

As Sean continues to grow and become even more verbal, we've come to realize the truth to the observation that when a toddler talks, it can be unintelligible to all but his parents. Part of that is because it's generally the parents (and/or main caregivers) who are most familiar with the toddler's speech patterns - as we've noticed at other times, it's incredibly easier to comprehend what you hear when you've got some sense of what to expect - but part of it is because it's generally the parents (and/or main caregivers) who are most familiar with the combination of influences, and thus they're best-positioned to recognize them. (And, I should add, toddlers aren't known for the most consistent enunciation.)

I mention this because Sean and I were on a bus a few weeks ago, and in the course of talking about what was going on around us, I mentioned that we were stopped at a red light. Now, Sean's been aware for a while that red means stop and green means go, in the traffic-light context, but beyond the basic explanation that "people have to take turns on the road, and sometimes they wait and sometimes they go," we hadn't talked much about what happens if people don't obey traffic lights. So, I explained that if someone went through a red light and their car were to collide with the bus, there would be an accident, which made Sean wonder how that would affect various participants.

By which I mean, he asked, rather loudly and intently, "And that would make the red and green crested basilisk sad?!?" (the green crested basilisk is the standard version; I think Sean added red to its color scheme based on a reference in an Eric Carle book)

I'm pretty sure nobody else on the bus had any idea what he was talking about, no matter how clearly he might have spoken.