Oh no you didn't....

Okay, so it was bound to happen at some point...I just thought (hoped...) it would be, oh, say 10 years from now.  You know, that moment when your kid is passionate about something and all of a sudden they slip up and say one of those words you really hope never comes out of their mouth....yeah. so it happened a little earlier than I'd hoped.

One of the biggest changes that occurs in the process of growing up from child to adult is that at some point along the way we lose the sense of "awe" that comes from ordinary mundane events. Carter has yet to lose that sense of "awe", and for this I am thankful. I think this is one of the most precious things I get to witness as a parent. SIGHHH....with that said, sometimes it can be hard to muster up the proper level of enthusiasm required to satisfy his level of pride and excitement  in whatever it is he has shared, found, done that to anyone else (at least over the age of around 12 or so) would seem ordinary and mundane.

Which brings us to the scenario above.  A little background....as I was taking down my Christmas decorations (uh..humm...a couple of weeks ago) I took the holiday rug in my kitchen to the patio to shake it.  Now I am not proud to admit it, but apparently I forgot to bring it back in. Therefore, it was still resting at the foot of our back steps.  This is where the story picks up.
As Carter played in the snow yesterday, he "discovered" this rug buried under the inch or so of snow.  He came bounding up the back steps, flew open the door, and called for me like his life depended on it. After I almost broke my neck dodging, jumping and tripping over toys to see what could be wrong, I arrived at the door to see Carter beaming and holding a dripping rug over the kitchen floor. "Look mom, the rug froze!! Can you believe it??"   I hated to point out to him that technically it was melting at this point, so I mustered up all the "enthusiasm" I could to show support for his amazing discovery.  "Wow Carter! That's pretty cool! Wonder why that happened?"  He returned to his play, but later came in and was still talking about the frozen rug. "Mom, it was like really hard! It was stiff too! It really froze out there!" Yes Carter, cool.  (My enthusiasm was starting to ebb...) Fast forward a few hours to dinner. Gabe had been in the garage during Carter's discovery and had missed this amazing story.  As Gabe washed up and I was setting the table, Carter began to relay this story to Gabe. (Now, this is at least the third, maybe fourth) time that I have heard about this rug.  Let's just say I may have not even looked up from what I was doing as he relayed it yet again.  My excuse for not paying much attention at this point was that I had already heard the story several times. Apparently Gabe must not have been giving this story as much attention as Carter would have liked either, because the following nightmare-like slow motion event occured. Carter stands up from the table (he had already sat down, though Gabe and I had not) and exclaims so that all within earshot would be sure to hear him, (in reference to the rug...)"I'm telling you it was sooo DAMN hard!" Picture me standing over the sink and a dish crashing down as time stands still in the rest of the house. (Okay, that didn't really happen, but in a movie, it would have).  The look on Carter's face as soon as it came out of his mouth was one of...Did I really just say that? Now what will happen?  Of course, my respone was, "I KNOW you didn't just say what I think you did!!!!!!"  I went on to give the lecture about how mommy and daddy don't talk that way and that it is not acceptable.  But I think his point was actually that he was trying to get us to pay attention to what he was saying and be excited with him and he knew that would get our attention! I guess we all learned something from this.