Life lessons

You try to teach your kids, you know, the difference between right and wrong and few other things you think might help them get along in this world, maybe even be a force for good. But The Boy is just 3 years old, and I'm beginning to think I'm just a bystander as he barrels through life.

At times he shows a self awareness that stuns me. I do not know where it comes from, and I find it achingly sweet. Like the other day, we were playing Candyland, and I asked him what will happen if he loses. "I not cry," he assured me, but just as he was about to win, he picked a card that would have sent him all the way back to the beginning (it's a harsh game, really) and the corners of his mouth began to sag. He refused to move his little gingerbread-man piece, and I asked him if we needed to put the game away for awhile, until he's old enough to lose without crying. He nodded and said, "We'll play again when I'm 4."

Other times, however, he demostrates all the understanding and empathy of a psychopath. Today for instance, we were looking at pumkins growing in a neighbor's yard, and he asked me what was on one of them. "That's a bug," I said, looking closesly. "Oh," he said, peering at the tiny thing. Then he squashed it with his thumb. "Why did you do that?" I asked, horrified. "I like to kill things," he said. "That's not nice," I said, and rattled, I rattled off all the reasons I could think of not to squash tiny things with your thumb when they're crawling around minding their own business. But no matter what I said, he insisted, "It's nice to kill cute little bugs."

So much for Innocence. Is this how serial killers get their start?