Copycat

Genetics is a fascinating concept. I don’t pretend to know a whole lot about human psychology, having taken just enough college Psyche to fulfill the liberal arts requirement and be able to hold my own in any discussion of nature vs. nurture. I am, however, painfully aware of the implications of both as I am a daily witness to the many ways in which, according to accounts from my wife and in-laws, my oldest son appears to grow more like his natural father (a wonderful human being, to be sure) despite my boy’s lack of paternal memory and our best efforts to steer him clear of such character defects. In this regard, I have the distinct pleasure of not only sharing living space with, but also attempting to raise a young man who has a tendency to behave much like the angrily aggressive, adolescently irresponsible poophead to whom my wife used to be married, so… yay me. To be fair, though, the same can be said, in a not always positive manner, about our youngest son. He, too, is a lot like his father, though I can’t recall sitting down to teach him any of the mildly amusing mannerisms that he has acquired in the first three years of his young life.

He is afraid of the dark. This alone has made the process of transitioning him from crib to “big boy” bed nearly impossible, as my wife and I spent nearly four months either sitting in the darkness of his room until he would fall asleep, or relentlessly returning him, screaming, to his bunk after repeated attempts on his part to join us for the night. Parents, even the most loving, can become quite grumpy and insensitive to one’s fears at 2:00 A.M. Subsequent conversations with my mother revealed what I only slightly remember as my own nocturnal reluctance to sleep alone. According to mom, I would climb into my parents’ bed, arousing the ire of my father, and have to be forcefully escorted to the darkness of my room, where, I insisted, there were unimaginable terrors and creatures waiting to destroy me. Yet, somehow, I survived.

Other characteristics of mine that my little boy has naturally picked up include aggressively biting his security blanket, picking up the pretty bees in the backyard even after a few stings would indicate this being a bad idea, and, most recently, uncannily repeating everything that he hears. All of these are corroborated by my mother as accurate manifestations of her own son’s behavioral antics, much to the delight of my wife, who, when the boy is being particularly troubling, is fond of passing him off as “daddy’s boy” and going on her merry way. I must admit, though, experiencing an overwhelming sense of pride when I notice even the most frustrating of the boy’s behaviors, as I delight in observing my little toddler “mini-me” and occasionally being entertained by the fact that he has adopted my talents. The one, in particular, that has given me no small amount of amusement is his ability to repeat, even at inappropriate times, whatever his little ears record.

I am, and have been as far as I can remember, an incredible mimic. That’s not a boast so much as recognition of ability to replicate sounds, voice inflections, and exact lines from most television shows and films that interest me enough to watch several times. When I was a child, for instance, my mother would request, ad nauseam, that I do my impression of John Belushi, to the slight amusement of holiday relatives, angrily intoning “Well, excu..uuu..use me!” a la the then famous shtick performed on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.” I just seemed, as I grew older, to have a knack for internalizing and playing back little tidbits of entertaining or informative sound bites like a human tape recorder.

Now that my son has seemed to locate this feature in his own brain, we spend a lot of time reciting lines from his favorite movies, inviting eye rolls from my wife whenever she is subjected to cuttings from Finding Nemo, Elmo in Grouchland, or Monsters Inc. I am quite pleased to have a little companion with which to finally practice scenes from movies, like the snippets of scripts I used to memorize on the speech team in high school. Most of my amusement, however, simply comes from his tendency to blurt out random phrases at the most inappropriate times, like belting out full verses of “Iron Man” or “The Heat of the Moment” in church, compliments of a healthy diet of Guitar Hero with dear old Dad.

The pinnacle of my delight, however, that is both a testament to my boy’s awareness of context, and my own juvenile delight in profane utterances of children came at bedtime a few nights ago. It is widely discussed and debated in our home whether ghosts, spooks, spirits, and all other manner of previously living or supernatural entities do, in fact, exist. I am adamant in my position that all of it is hogwash, and despite our mutual fondness for television fare like “Ghost Whisperer” and “Ghosthunters,” my wife are at opposite sides of this argument. Our oldest son, ever loyal to mom, weighs in heavily in favor and has a respectful fear of the living undead. This, of course, results in his reluctance to venture to the second floor of our home alone, particularly in the dark.

So, the other night, I asked my oldest to go get ready for bed. He resisted, citing the fact that I refused to accompany him upstairs. After a brief debate, in which I, quite within earshot of the younger son, clarified my stance on spiritual matters, I convinced him to go. Shortly after, as I was tucking in the younger who, alone I might add, had decided to go to bed, I happened to reassuringly assert that all this talk of ghosts and nonsense was just silly. He had, I reminded him, nothing to fear.

“I know,” my three-year-old son replied, “it’s just a bunch of bullshit around here.”
True, true, my man.