Not-So-Proud Parent Moment

You know those billboards around town about kids and smoking? The ones that say “It’s never too early to start talking to them” or something to that effect? Well, I’ve been talking to Makgill about how yucky smoking is every time we pass one of those billboards. And it has BACKFIRED! We were in Lowes yesterday, and my sweet three year old looks at me and says “I want to smoke a cigarette!” Well, he must have liked the stunned reaction that he got from Collin and me (we couldn’t help but laugh…it was FUNNY!). He then proceeds to repeat the statement…a lot…LOUDLY! We are walking through Lowes with a three year old almost-shouting “I wanna smoke a cigarette!” It very quickly ceased being funny, so I told him that they don’t sell cigarettes at Lowes, but I would be happy to take him to a gas station and let him run in to get some (thinking that this would scare him and he would say that he doesn’t REALLY want to smoke a cigarette). Yeah, that didn’t work either. He said he would rather have one from Cici’s (I don’t know why he thinks they sell cigarettes there). But then later he said he didn’t want them from anywhere. From that point on I just ignored the whole situation and got him involved in something else (probably what we should have done from the beginning).

What am I going to do with this crazy kid?!?! He did tell me later that he didn’t want a cigarette because he doesn’t want his teeth to fall out. We then talked about all of the other reasons not to smoke. Did he just want to get a reaction out of me? Is this some kind of horrible foreshadowing of him listening to what I say and then doing the opposite? Pray for this child and his parents!!!