Too smart for his own good

I love this age.  Jude is 21 months old, and everything is a discovery.  Everything is new, a learning experience, and I am his great teacher, the one who knows all.

I love watching him discover what a pumpkin is all about, or a spider, or sidewalk chalk.  Every moment with him is an opportunity to teach him something, or introduce something he's never noticed.  And I have this eery feeling that he's retaining everything I say...even at times I've been disquieted by his ability to pull up a fact that I would never suspected he would remember.  For instance, a few weeks ago I was counting, and he just joined in, all the way up to 13.  I hadn't been trying to teach him; he just learned.  And the other day I told my husband I was going to take a "s-h-o-w-e-r", spelling it so Jude wouldn't want to join me, and Jude said, "shower."  I had rarely, if ever, spelled that word in front of him before.  Okay, okay, now I'm bragging.  But, the startling realization hit me that I have to watch every word I say with this one.  The other day, my husband said "dang" in his conversation with me, and of course, that was the one word Jude chose to repeat...over and over again.  He's not going to let me slip up without him noticing.  Oh, the pressure.