How Long?

"How long?" I have been asking myself lately. As in, "How long will it take until our kids are smarter than we are?" This is not meant to be a "my-three-year-old-is-a-genius" type of post. Instead, it is really questioning my own intelligence as I realize that my children continue to learn more and I continue to remember less.

Today at dinner, Caroline kept saying, "Baby!" and swinging her hands back and forth as though she were rocking a baby. We thought she was just being cute and pretending to rock a baby until we found out that she was actually signing the word "baby" to us. How did we find out? We asked our three year old and she told us. A few months ago Caroline was making a particular hand motion when we would bring her a sippy cup. Again, Lucy was the one to tell us that she was signing the word "milk." In both instances, Lucy has given us a look which clearly says, "Seriously, guys? You need to start knowing this stuff."

Lucy's ability to remember American Sign Language as well as Spanish has been pretty fun to watch. She will randomly say a Spanish word and tell us what it means - and of course, we often don't know whether it is correct (even though we both took Spanish in high school) so one of us has to head to the computer to Google it. The shocking thing is that we have rarely come back saying, "No, she was wrong."

This is where some mothers might go on to brag about how smart their children are. I am going to go in a different direction here. While part of me is proud of her and praises her for being so excited about what she has learned in school, there is another part of me that is starting to realize that Lucy believes that she is ALWAYS right.

Think I am exaggerating? Just ask her.

Just this morning (as Lucy was insisting that it was going to snow today even though there was a high of 78 degrees) I said to her, "You know, Lucy, you aren't always right."

Without batting an eyelash, she responded, "Yes, I am." 

Yikes.

Confidence is so important with girls, so I keep telling myself that this is a good problem to have. On the other hand, it does not make conversations like the one I had this morning any less frustrating.

And now I am off to bed. Or perhaps I will start studying my Spanish and ASL so that I can stay one step ahead of these little nerds.