So, there’s this kid in Sasha’s preschool class. Let’s call him David. He’s a sweet 3-year-old, blond and smiling. In the evenings, he’ll run to hug any and all parents coming to pick up their kids. Very affectionate—likable, even.

On Friday, when I went to pick up Sasha, David came running up to me, as usual, wearing a construction worker’s costume: hardhat and reflective orange vest. Then he punched me in the balls—hard. Well, hard for a toddler, hard enough that I instinctively yelled “Oof!” and covered my grapes with my hands. Hard enough that Sasha’s teacher noticed something had happened. “He punched me in the balls” is what I wanted to say, but somehow that seemed unacceptable. Also, Sasha’s teacher doesn’t speak English 100 percent perfectly, so I wasn’t sure she’d understand me.

But then David kept trying to do it again, and I had to fend him off. This wasn’t difficult. He’s only 3. Eventually, he left me alone.

As I bundled Sasha into her winter gear and left, I had only one thought: Poor David’s father!

***

Sunday it was 16 degrees out, and I was carrying Sasha over to our friend’s house for some Burmese food. At the corner of Third Avenue and Bergen Street, she said, suddenly, apropos of nothing, for the first time I’d ever heard, “That’s dis-gus-ting!”

Then, silently, unrelatedly, I burped. And it was as if Sasha had predicted this very future.

“It smells like doggie food!” she said.

Thing is, it did, kind of.

"He's sad because he wants to wash his hair."

“屁股! 屁股!” shouted Sasha as we wandered through the corridors of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Translation: “Butt! Butt!” Which was kind of also my reaction to the incredible collection of sculptures and busts: what a lot of glorious nudity!

But Sasha’s understanding and interpretation of the classics wasn’t just limited to recognizing bare bottoms. “He’s sad,” Sasha said in front of a statue of Hercules and a centaur, the hero pulling on the beast’s head. She meant the centaur, but why? “Because he [Hercules] wants to wash his hair.” Ah, of course. That makes sense. If it would make Sasha sad, it stands to reason it would sadden a centaur as well.

Elsewhere, Sasha continued looking at classical art from a different point of view. At a statue representing the rape of the Sabine women, Sasha gave the rapist a time out for fighting. Very appropriate, although a T.O. at such a critical juncture might have prevented, or limited, the rise of Rome. As we looked at yet another painting of the Madonna and child, Sasha gave her interpretation: “The baby likes the princess.” Well, yes!

And then we were back to nudity. “He has no clothes on,” she said of Michelangelo’s David. “He needs to peepee.” Perhaps, I thought, although when I have to pee, the expression on my face is usually not so reflective.

The effect that the David, often considered the ultimate expression of Western art, had on Sasha was not just titillating. No, by the time we left, its power and majesty and eloquence had reduced her to tears. At least, I think that’s why she was crying.