The barn

Tonight, after an intensive basement search, I located one of my prize possessions: the Fisher Price barn with "real" little people, fences, livestock, a rooster, and a door that says 'moo' when opened. I immediately brought it upstairs and played with my daughter. It's only the fourth farmland toy she's received in the past six months. She also has an oversized cloth book that folds open to reveal a pastoral scene: farmer on tractor, kitten, puppy, pig, lamb, calf, etc. Each (including the tractor) has a little button which produces a sound, and one that actually sings (a questionably loud electronic version of) Old MacDonald had a Farm.

Because of the electronic song, Alexa now refers to all pastoral barn scenes, even those rendered in oil and hung on the wall, as "e-i-e-i-o". What struck me as sad, was I live in the suburbs. From the number of farms in our home, one would think this was an everyday part of our life. My daughter holds up the tractor, and I say "tractor", slowly and clearly. She looks at me quizzically, as if to wonder, yes, but WHAT is it?

It must be so odd to be a toddler; learning of the world through conceptualized and reductionistic images. How would she know a tractor, if she never sees one plowing a field?