Friday, November 13, 2009

Teenager



Can someone please tell me when my teensy, round, barely-toddler turned into a teenager? Look at him! It's unreal how quickly he's growing (41 inches as of this morning, according to the tape measure). And how he's stretched out—he used to be this compact little bundle of chubby-love, and now he's long and lean.

And he acts like a teenager, too. Always right about everything. Ev-ry-thing. He tells me how to drive and how to cook, points out my every misstep. It's gotta be neat to be a month away from 4 and to have it all figured out. I think I was at least 13 before I knew better than my parents (Daddy, feel free to chime in and correct me).

The vocabulary on this kid can stop you in your tracks. So strange to hear a not-quite-4-year-old dropping words like perhaps and perpendicular. Especially when he still has a cute little lisp and mixes up word order (e.g., "Why you said dose sings was perpendicular when dey really parallel?"—again, pointing out my every misstep.)

He's an interesting mix of over-the-top energy and focused intellect. At school he's one of the shyer, more quiet ones. At home and in pretty much every public place, he's loud, gregarious, loud, active, loud, bossy, and loud. But then he'll sit down with a book of puzzles or word searches and get lost in it for whatever the preschooler equivalent is of hours on end.

He keeps us guessing, and marveling, and buying bigger and bigger sizes of clothing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man, Deirdre--just breaks your heart to see him looking like such a grown up! I think you can tell by this pic what he's going to look like as an adult, too.

Alicia said...

Wow, he sure does look older than his years in that picture! Cute as ever but so grown up. I laughed out loud at your word order example because it sounds EXACTLY like Eliza.

Liza said...

Funny: Molly is also one of the quiet ones at preschool, too, and at home she's Loud Loud Loud!! Not sure what that's about. But boy, is your little man gorgeous!!