and so it begins

I've wondered before what it must be like for parents of older children to send their kids out into the world, whether to school or a friend's house or wherever, and not really know what information, be it good or bad, might be infiltrating their minds while they're away. I thought it would be a while before I experienced that myself with my own children, but it seems to already beginning. Not in a bad way, fortunately, but beginning nonetheless...

A few weeks ago Sean heard me and Chris talking about a friend's baseball game, and he chimed in, "Big Ben hit home run!" Now, the kid loves sports but he doesn't know much terminology from any of them, especially something like a home run. Or so we thought. When we asked him where he learned about a home run he said, "Robert's baseball game," in a tone that implied, "DUH."

Then last week we were driving in the car and I hear him start singing. I turn around to see his little hands rolling the gospel chariot along. Again, I was dumbfounded. We didn't teach him that song (it's not in our usual repertoire of church songs that we sing at home), and he's only had a new teacher in Bible class singing that song for a few weeks. Amazing. And you could tell he was so proud of himself.

And when Chris got Sean dressed a few days ago, the little boy insisted on wearing his Cardinals shirt completely backwards with the Cardinals logo on the back and the "PUJOLS" and "5" on the front. When he's worn that shirt correctly before you could ask him what was on the front and he'd say matter-of-factly, "Birds." So out of curiosity, I asked him this day what was on the front and he looked down and said, "Um. Num-bee FIVE!" Chris and I were dumbfounded. Where did he learn about the number five? Sure, we've read him a few numbers books, but did he really pick it up from that? And if not, then who taught it to him? Unbelievable.

I'm enjoying knowing that everything he's learned so far out of my reach has been innocent, because I know there will all too soon come a day when he comes home asking about things I don't think he ever needs to know, and I'm not ready for that quite yet.