Oh dear Jesus, what's to come?

My dad often reminds me that a kid's behavior when they are three is mirrored in their behavior when they are thirteen. I know, I know. Scary, right?

If it means we will still be getting fire safety lectures from Lil E's "Firefighter Phil" alter-ego ("Kids! Do not put blankets over candles or lamps! Do not go back into da house to get your kitty cats! Let the firefighters do their jobs! Here! Try on my hat and look at my cool boots! You can sit in the fire engine and touch the steering wheel but do not turn on the siren! That's my job!..." you get the picture) or that we spend hours upon hours dissecting the character motivation behind Lightening McQueen, Mack and Mater in Cars, then I have some definite concerns.

If it means that at thirteen, my boy will insist I tell stories from my own childhood while he spends a half-hour pretending to go potty, then we have a few things to work on.

If it means at that point that he requires eleven stuffed animals, four blankets, two pillows, a night light, a prayer to God to have "dreams about cool things like construction and Firefighter Phil" rather than bad dreams about being chased by the fox from the gingerbread man story and a "fresh sippy cup of water, pleeeeease," then professional help may need to be pulled in for consult.

If it means that Caillou and SuperWhy are still considered beloved members of the family and that his diet rests contentedly on the pink yogurt Cheerios and mac 'n cheese, then I have a lot of books to buy immediately.

And of course, if it means that my teenage boy doles out hugs and plays along to Pretend You're Gina on American Idol with me and still pronounces animals as "amohmohs," well then...I will be just fine. My mama happiness won't center on that chance but if those parts of three are still apparent in ten years, that wouldn't be bad at all. No matter what Dr. Phil or Dr. Sears or the pediatrician might say.

What I really fear is what I heard the other night, perched next to Lil E as he went potty one last time before bed.

It takes a lot to convince this kid to go at all. Somehow, he's avoided the peanut bladder gene that his dad and I both are afflicted with and he can do what we've called "camel it out" all day long since day one of potty training (Handy at Target? Sure! Handy for daycare? Not so much).  Getting him to go when all he wants to do is have a few last minutes with Lightening McQueen or get to the books and snuggles is even more difficult.  That night, we sat and sat and sat while he talked and talked and talked. And that's it. I reverted to pleading, asking him to please please please just go so we could get out of the bathroom already.

He looked at me squarely and said, "I can be done now, but I am going to tell you I have to go just before you put me in my bed."

He was so honest in his strategy to avoid bedtime that it startled me. I needed to clarify.

"To avoid bed?" I asked bluntly. "Are you going to tell me you have to go just to put off going ni-ni?"

To that, without any shame whatsoever, he nodded.

Then, just as he said he would, as soon as I began lowering him from my onslaught of mommy snuggles and smooches into his bed, he looked up at me with his big brown eyes even bigger and browner than they were the moment before and said, "Mommy, I need to go potty."

How can I say no? He's still learning and maybe, despite his pint-sized manipulations over his clearly-bigger bladder, he does have to go. What then?

So I pulled him up and carried into the bathroom, where he (yes, you guessed it) sat and sat and sat and talked and talked and talked. And nothing else. Until I pulled him off the potty, pulled up his pajamas and took him back to bed, for real this time.

It was then that I could really see this Clifford the Big Red Dog-toting preschooler toddling toward teendom. And it both scared and entertained me.

I imagined his honesty and independence working together in his own little ways:

Mommy, I could see him informing me in a monotone, no nonsense way green light of rebellion, I'm going to come home stoned off my ass and plow through the pantry until I find a bag of Cheetos to inhale as well.

Mommy, I am going to totally pretend like I don't hear you when you lecture me on safe sex, drug use, cigarette nastiness and the dangers of motorcycles and any music featured on MTV, then roll my eyes and laugh about it with my friends while I run up a texting bill that far exceeds my allowance or crappy high school job earnings.

Mommy, I am going to act like I am walking into school when you drop me off but then am going to duck out as soon as you drive away and hang out in Wendy's all day with my punk ass friends.

Perhaps I'm envisioning too much or expecting too little. Who knows? But I laughed to hear him make a plan to outwit me and then tell me about it and then to still outwit me.

Oh, baby. And to think I was concerned with five or eleven or seventeen. I guess I didn't realize that when folks say time with kids speeds by, they mean it just all gets churned over and over, just with higher stakes and more massive consumption of snacks.