Color Me Confused

My littlest weirdo (I say "littlest" as being weird isn't much of a distinction in my home) has made leaps and bounds developmentally over the last month.  Always a quieter child, I had assumed his personality was the culprit, and thanked my lucky stars that I had two children that complimented each other and breathed a sigh of relief for the gray hairs I was sure I'd avoided.

As it turns out, however, Graham was NOT a calmer, quieter boy.  He just inherited my perfectionism and chose not to speak until he felt that he could effectively express himself, and also explodes into an irritable conniption when any of us can't understand his experimentations with the English language.

But for those topics he knows, he's very clear and confident.  And there is no topic closer to Graham's heart than colors.  One of his first words was "purple", and while I doubted that he was making that distinction, it soon became clear that he had a real aptitude for art and colors.

Once we'd mastered purple, it was on to green, those colors being Graham and Cael's favorites, respectively.  When the "green" switched clicked in his brain, he was unable to turn it off.

"Mama!  Geen gass!"  
"Geen ball.  Biiiig ball!"

On to red.  And then blue.  And then we hit a wall.  We've been working on all of the colors with the help of our gel window clings, but decided to tackle them one by one this time and focus on yellow.

"Graham, can you say yellow?"

"Yew-ow."

"Good job!  Now, which leaf is yellow?"

"Dat weef."

"Nope, that's the orange letter.  Try again!"

"Dis weef."

"Well, that's a brown acorn.  One more try?"

"No more weef!  No weef.... YUT!"  (Yuck)

That was as pointless as a steam engine with no coal.  And I know my trains.

I thought that it might all be in my approach, so I decided to ask Graham to tell me the color of certain items around the house.

"What color is my shirt?"

"Pupple."

"Good job, Bubba!  Okay, what color is that lizard?"

"Geen."

"You're so smart!  Hmm... what color is your shirt?"

"Boo."

"Right again!  Now here's a tricky one... what color is your hair?"

I knew it was a long shot, especially since "blonde" resides somewhere between a color and a characteristic, but I was curious of what his response would be.

"Red har."

"Red?  Not yet, at least.  What about your tummy?"

"Pupple."

"You have a purple tummy?  That's news to me!  What color is your bottom!?"

"Poop!"

Today colors, tomorrow therapy.