One of the parenting lessons I’m still learning is that my children do indeed listen to conversations going on around them. Never take for granted that your child is tuning you out in favor of the Cartoon Network or the merry melody being generated from their hand-held Nintendo. The snippets of information they pick up is amazing! For instance, a couple of days ago I’m at my keyboard typing away when my youngest boy Mark, who is six years old, comes to my side and says…”Daddy, that commercial on T.V. is a big liar!” Of course I ask him why he thinks that to be so, to which he replies “because they said Dell is the best computer in the world!” After a hearty chuckle I told him he was indeed correct about the commercial being a “big liar”, then it dawned on me that Wendy and I had a conversation earlier in which we were complaining about how noisy and slow the Dell we own is.
Another lesson that Wendy learned the hard way is that young children have zero discretion. Several years ago she was standing in line at the grocery store and Erick turns around, points at the lady in front of her, then loudly proclaims…. “EWWWWW, Mommy…. She FARTED!!”
I could go on and on with such stories but I am sure some of you have stories of your own. Care to share?