T-R-O-U-B-L-E

In the four years since the little man has entered our lives, my husband and I have gotten into the habit of spelling words or phrases we didn't want little ears to hear. It was our way of still communicating, while still keeping the little man blissfully in the dark. For instance, at the State Fair last year the little man saw a tractor toy that he loved.

"We could save it for C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S," I said to my husband.

"Good idea, I'll take him outside and distract him," he said. And with that, he and the little man were off so mama could do some early Christmas shopping.

Skip forward to this summer.

And add in some reading/writing lessons over the past year.

And you have one clever 4-year-old who now knows how to spell.

Which can only spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E for mommy and daddy.

The other night our family was enjoying some time at the pool. It was getting late, so I knew it was about time to pack it in for the night.

"It's about time to go H-O-M-E," I said to my husband.

"But I don't wanna go HOME," the little man immediately blurted out. "I wanna stay here."

I looked at my husband in amazement. It couldn't be true. There was no way our little man had broken the mommy/daddy secret code already.

Once we finally got the little man out of the water (despite his fits), we began the walk out to our car, with a very solemn little man in tow. His pouty lip got the best of me.

"Maybe when we get home we can have some I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M," I said to my husband. "That might make him forgive us for ending his fun."

Immediately the little man jumped up and his frown had been turned upside down.

"YES - I want some ice cream!" he squealed. "Yeayyyyyyyyyy!"

My husband I looked at each other, once again shocked. Then the realization quickly set in.

The little man was on to our secret code. And he was now capable of breaking it.

"Well," I finally said. "I guess we knew this day would come eventually."

I looked back at the little man, who had a big smile on his face.

"Ice cream!" he said, throwing his arms up into the air.

And with that, we were off to our H-O-M-E from some wonderful I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M.