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This is Intentionally Vicarious… I’m Todd Youngblood… And I was just sitting here at my desk pondering aimlessly… And I found myself thinking about how the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know. I also started thinking about how many things I’ve learned from unlikely sources.

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Just last week for example. I was visiting my daughter, son-in-law and their two young children. The “Big Guy” just turned 3, and his little sister is all of 16 months. At one point during the visit, old grandpa here had the genuine pleasure of babysitting for a few hours. Of course, the 3-year-old has a pretty decent vocabulary and can carry on a real conversation. My granddaughter, on the other hand, knows maybe a dozen words and that a car goes beep-beep, a monkey says Ahh-Ahh and a dog says woof-woof.

I was stumped when she started staring at me and repeating ag-wa, ag-wa over and over. Her tone was insistent, and it was clear she wasn’t about to give up. At that point my grandson looks at me with an expression that says, “What are you, stupid?” and says the word agua – in a perfect Spanish accent, followed by the statement, “She wants a glass of water.”

So I am both grateful and humble. Grateful that I had someone to translate toddler-spoken Spanish. And humble that it was a 3 year old child who had to do the translation for me. He truly does think grandpa is fun guy though…

Anyway… Always be alert for new things to learn, and always recognize that the education may come from an unexpected source.