"Meet the Fockers" Teaching Moment

A few weeks ago, as I was laying on the couch, sick as a 14 year old dog with measles, the movie "Meet the Fockers" came on.  I had seen the first movie, "Meet the Parents", a while ago, but had never gotten around to seeing the second one.  I found it to be hilarious.  It was a wonderful clash of cultures, parenting styles, and almost everything else that you could imagine.  Yet, despite laughing my sick butt off on the couch throughout the movie, there was one moment, that while hilarious, was also a stark reality of the way children learn.  Repetition.  There is a point in the movie where Ben Stiller's character is left to watch a young child, between the ages of 1 and 2, by himself.  He is given specific instructions on how to handle the child, and yet, he manages to screw everything up, at one point uttering "ass hole" directly in front of the child.  The boy, previously unable to talk, decides that those two words will be his first and in drawn out rendition, looks right back at Stiller and says, "ass hoooooooole".  I couldn't stop laughing.  I think part of what kept me laughing is the fact that I have a son, probably a little bit older than the boy in the movie, who now repeats almost everything you say.  It may not be repeated right away, but it will get repeated at some point.  A perfect example of that is an incident that happened over the last few days.  As my wife has been home watching our daughter, I have been taking our son to daycare in the mornings.  On the way there, he loves to point out different trucks, buses, and excavators at work sites.  So in the spirit of conversation, I decided to start pointing out the different colored signs that line the side of the road as well as the traffic lights.  Whenever we would come to a red light, I would point it out and say, "Red light means stop."  Then, when it turned green, I would say, "Green light means go."  Innocuous really, and I just figured I would get the jump on driver training when he is super young, but it turned poignant when I came home from work the other day and my wife asked me if I had pointed out the traffic lights to our son.  "Of course I had", I told her, "why?"  It turns out that as my wife was driving him home, she stopped at a red light and then as soon as it turned green, our son said, "Mommy, green light go."  While this is an innocent example, it just proves how careful we need to be as parents with what we say around impressionable young children.  So, while "Meet the Fockers" is a true comedy, it does come with some moments that almost every parent can identify with as tangible and taken right from reality, however it is twisted for a movie's plot line.  Our son repeats almost everything.  Some of the funnier ones are when I am getting him up stairs for bed and say, "Chop chop, lets go."  He will repeat it verbatim including his own name in the statement as well.  He even tries to mimic my whistle that I use for calling the dogs although right now he is just blowing air through his mouth.  While its precious, it also keeps me on my toes because I know if I slip up even once now, and utter a "less than favorable" word, he will repeat it and probably use it at the worst possible time, like when we are in church and everyone is quiet.  (Don't worry, that hasn't happened yet, but I can see it potentially happening.)