Somebody's watching you...

I'm sure we're all aware of the fact that toddlers are mimickers. They naturally do what they see done around them. I have never been more aware of this fact than I was this morning, when Elianna and I were coloring with markers.
Coloring with markers is a treat for Ellie. Being two and all, I don't entirely trust her not to color on things that aren't paper. So this is probably only the third or fourth time she's used them in our home. Suddenly she decided to stick the end of a lid of one marker into her mouth. First she did what is natural for her, and pretended it was trumpet. "Doo do doooo!". It was what she did next that shocked me.
She sat there quietly for some time, with this lid sticking out of her mouth, looking down at it somewhat cross-eyed. After a few moments she looked up at me and said, "I'm Cohd". "Cohd" is Ellie's word for "Cole", our next door neighbour.
He smokes.
I wish I could tell you that I managed to hold it together and sternly tell Ellie that smoking is not good...but I didn't. I laughed. I laughed looong and hard.
And then I told her that smoking isn't healthy for us and gives us 'owies' inside and we shouldn't pretend to do that. But I'm sure all that was lost on the fact that she got a good laugh out of me.
Needless to say, I have a heightened sense of awareness that I need to be so very careful, not just of what I say, but particularly of what I do. There is an observant little pair of blue-gray eyes watching my every move.