Be Careful Little Mouth What You Say

If you have children who speak fluently you should be careful what you and your husband discuss while their little ears are carefully recording every word and preparing to repeat them back at a most embarrassing moment.

How do I know? You ask. Well, it just so happens that recently my husband and I were discussing the fact that our new across the street neighbors have had a package of ours for over a week that was mistakenly delivered to their house instead of ours. We knew about it because my husband had been expecting a delivery for his business, and when he called UPS about the delay, they discovered that they had delivered it to our neighbors address, which is one digit different from ours.

Why didn't we just go over there and get it you wonder? Well, because these aren't the across the street neighbors that we have known and loved and talked to every single day for five years. No, they recently moved an hour away right before their new baby was born so that I haven't so much as seen her in the flesh, but I'm not still upset about it at all. These are the new across the street neighbors who bought their house, not to live in, but to remodel and resell. So, they don't live there, but come by for an hour here and there each day to sand and saw and paint and hammer. We haven't even met them, and never know really when they will be coming and going. It's really a bit much for an overly friendly nosy neighbor to take, which is why I really miss the other neighbors. The other neighbors would call us and tell us that one of the kids had left the car door open again, or they'd catch our runaway dog and put it back in our yard if we were gone somewhere. They even came over in the middle of the night when my husband had to take me to the hospital, once. (But, again, I'm not harboring resentment that they just up and moved.)

Anyway, we were saying that it doesn't take very much effort to run a package across the street and after all we are out in our front yard a lot and had in fact been out there in plain sight when we had seen said neighbors coming and going. We even discussed the honesty and integrity of keeping something that you know full well doesn't belong to you, and OH, look! There they are across the street and here we are in the front yard and I'll bet that package is still in their possession. In fact, I revealed that I knew it was still in their possession, because I had gone over there and peeked in their window, and I sorta had my camera with me so I went ahead and snapped a few shots, you know, just in case they were planning on selling it on Ebay and pocketing the cash, or something, and we needed proof that it was, in fact, at one time in their house. Not that I'm the suspicious type, or anything.

You probably already know where this is going. Don't you?

Little did we know that 5yo was listening intently and apparently scheming of a way to get our package. (Where she gets it, I'll never know!) All I knew was that yesterday out of the blue, or so I thought, a young 20 something man appeared at my door with our package. "THANK YOU!" I gushed. "We have been wondering about this."

Later, 5yo revealed that she saw him across the street earlier in the day and shouted, "YOU HAVE OUR PACKAGE!!!" The other kids reported that he looked at her quizzically, as if maybe he didn't understand, so just for good measure, she restated, "THAT'S OUR PACKAGE IN YOUR HOUSE!!!!!"

So, be careful what you discuss in front of your children, because you never know when they will shout it across the street at the new neighbors.