My Smart Little Helper

It's a weird moment when you realize your child is more observant than you. Lucas misses nearly nothing and now that he's talking, he constantly is alerting us with words like, "Moon, stars, car, truck, siren-sounds, cat, dog, horse...." and the list goes on.

Yesterday he and I went to leave Emily's house and Emily so kindly put the stroller into the back of the car for me (she's a friendly little helper too!). I had forgotten to empty the little console area of the stroller, so a bunch of stuff fell out onto the ground. No biggie. We picked up the toys and packed Lucas into the car as normal. Lucas is telling us something, but in my efforts to get a small amount of adult conversation with Emily (her kiddos were in the house = no distractions) I rudely ignored my own child's words.

We said our goodbyes and wrapped up our conversation. I buckled Lucas in safely and he continued to say the same word over and over again. At this point I realized he had something very important to communicate with me and tried to understand. I could not. I gave up and proceeded to shut his door and get into the drivers seat. Lucas continued with his word... over and over again. Ack! I sensed his frustration, but had no clue (mental block here people... because his word wasn't that hard to understand) what the child wanted. I began my pre-drive procedure: seatbelt, keys, phone. Hmmm... where was my phone? And then it struck me! Lucas was saying "phone". Where was it?

I remembered leaving it in the stroller and then I realized it must've fallen onto the ground with the other schtuff. I didn't see it? Weird. Maybe it slid under the car? Sure enough...it was laying on the ground, behind the tire on Lucas' side of the car. My child misses nothing.

Such a strange moment for me... have you ever felt this way? In a flash I envisioned years from now... when Lucas is current on electronics and media and I haven't a clue what he's talking about. I see myself asking him questions to gain information about the World we live in and trusting his solid advice. My baby is getting big, and though I won't get the cart before the horse... he's a smart one and not too far from now, he's gonna be my hook-up and save me from my own scatter-brain oblivion.