Freakish Toddler Abilities

I know how annoying it can be to listen to people talk about their kids, but what happened yesterday was just too weird to keep to myself.

It’s no secret that I’m a music junkie. This week alone, I bought three CDs. One of my favorite things to do is share my new discoveries with my three-year-old son, Mattias. He tends to get caught on a few artists, like Jet for example, but he’s usually open to at least hearing other stuff. As it the case with most toddlers, however, you never really know when he’s listening.

This time, evidently he was.

For what it’s worth I bought records by Andrew Bird, Spoon and Chris Cornell, all of which I recommend, but definitely in the order listed. Though I felt like Cornell’s new album was a bit of a mixed bag, it was the closest to the rock style to which Mattias is generally drawn. So we were listening through his CD for the first time, and had nearly gotten to the end. He particularly liked to “rock out” – his words – to the heavier songs. Apparently I am raising a metal-head.

My wife, Amy, is out of town this week, so I’m playing bachelor dad while she’s at camp. I took him to Sonic for a cherry Lime-aid because he amazingly made it through a meal at a restaurant without any outbursts. He decided he’d like to sit outside next to the fountain at sonic with which he is strangely infatuated, and it was nice out so I agreed.

Just as we got our drinks, Mattias looks off into the distance and says, “This is five.”

I thought he was talking about the five dollar bill I had used to pay for the drinks, but then he said it again, “Daddy, this is five,” pointing at the canopy above us.

It turns out he was pointing o the speaker underneath the canopy, which I now finally noticed was playing a song from the same Chris Cornell CD we had been listening to in the car.

“This is five?” I asked, “like, this is song number five on Chris Cornell’s CD?”

This is when my three-year-old looked at me like I was a moron.

“Yeah, dad. This is number five.” I checked when I got back in the car, and sure enough, it was song number five.

He then proceeded to sing the guitar leads to a couple of other songs on the record that he had heard only once, followed by the number of the track. He got it right every freaking time.

Little did I know we gave birth to Rain Man.