These Aren’t the Droids You’re Looking For

Something happened. When we weren’t looking, I guess. Our kid is growing up. And it’s happening fast. Faster than we anticipated. Faster than we’d hoped. Just fast, fast, fast.

And now, along with baby fat and weird pronunciations (“hambagunga” instead of “hamburger,” for instance), we are quickly losing something else: the ability to keep the Doozer in the dark. About anything we want. At anytime we want. Yes, it’s sad, but true.

It looks like the days of Jedi mind tricks are coming to an end.

This became evident in a single moment during our recent family vacation to Traverse City. One evening we took the childrens to a famed local ice cream parlor, Moomers. The sign on the building, the Moomers logo, features a cow. This was the very first time the Doozer had ever seen this image. And he pretty much only saw it for a few seconds as we parked. And then never again.

And yet—and yet—the next day, no more than 24 hours later, we were walking up to an old-timey general store, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and they had a very small Moomers sign in the window (they sold pints of the stuff there). Immediately, the Doozer pointed it out.

“Moomers!”

Son of a bitch, I thought. How did he do that?

So, here’s what we’ve got. A steel trap mind. A ridiculous memory. And insatiable inquisitiveness. All added up, these things now make the Doozer a more than formidable opponent that is rapidly ceasing to be an individual we can put one over on. No longer can we talk right in front of him as if he’s not even there. Things may still go over his head, but this will only make him redouble his efforts to understand what the adults are talking about.

What are you talking about? Why? Why? Why . . . ? 

These are the questions now. And they are constant. He’s alert and aware and paying attention. To everything. All the time. In some ways, it’s like being a kid yourself, or a teenager, all over again and living with your parents. Creeping upstairs at night, trying not to make any noise (and not even doing anything suspicious at all, by the way) only to hear a tiny voice emanate from behind a closed door.

“Dada?”

Damn.

“Dada? Dada? What are you doing?”

Seriously.

“What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

(He doesn't get this reference yet. He only knows the Ministry of Silly Walks.)

“Nothing” or “Because” or “Never mind” or “Just go to sleep” no longer seem to be effective responses to the kid’s focused inquiries. He is no longer easy to dismiss, or easy to convince of anything, for that matter. He’s almost too smart. The wife and I have too many years of killing too many brain cells to stand up to the onslaught. It’s like the student is becoming the master.

And any day now, we’re going to allow him to get past us with C-3PO and R2-D2, because he’s got nothing but brain cells (for now) and he’s figuring out exactly how to use them. Against us.

And now we are screwed.