Little Pitchers

Luke is almost five, which means he now understands pretty much everything any adult says around him, and is able to repeat it back at a moment's notice. I'm not just talking about obscenities either, although he's been doing that since he was two, but actual conversations and facts that he never would have picked up nine months ago. It's really kind of interesting, and kind of scary. All of a sudden my family and I have started watching what we say around him, lest it come back to haunt us.

My sister Amanda, Luke's mother, was the first to learn the lesson. She and Luke were up at my Mom's one Sunday afternoon when the boy walked into the kitchen and announced that they were going home because Grandma was "driving (them) crazy." My mother asked why she was driving Luke crazy, to which he replied "not me, my Mom said it." Ouch.

He doesn't look like this any more.

Luke is more than a mere parrot too. He takes time to percolate on things he hears, only to pop up with them at different moments. Take today: Luke and I were in the pool, floating him on his back, when he looked up at me and said "why did you have an ultrasound?" Bam! I'm in the middle of a conversation about reproductive technology with a 4-year old. Of course, this comes two days after he asked me why I wanted "good eggs," so I had a pretty good idea what my mother and sisters had been talking about when I wasn't there.

And he doesn't just get stuff from the people around us. We now have to be careful what we watch around him. The news is off limits because he will hear about crime, and then fret about it happening to someone he knows. A 7-year old girl was kidnapped a few weeks ago, and it was all over the news. Luke started saying things like "Did you hear about the girl who was missing? She's in heaven now." He's also been freaked about the FLDS raids in Texas, convinced that officials can just come in and take kids from their parents. And, of course, since he's a Mitchell, he's a worrier, so we know he's thinking about it a lot more than he says. That's a lot to carry on such little shoulders. So, now we're all getting better about turning off the news when he is around, and explaining that he does not have to worry about kidnappings, or Child Protective Services, because neither will be coming for him.

It really is amazing to watch him grow. I have no idea what he will do, or say, next. But I know that if it involves the word "fuck," the phrase "I'm going to kick your ass," or any anti-Republican rhetoric that I will most likely get blamed.