In real time, he's still 5. But some of the things coming out of his mouth suggest the edgy cocktail of scorn and self-consciousness more common to a 15-year-old.

"I can't wear that shirt. It doesn't look good. No one will know who I am."

"I hate this haircut, Mom. It makes me look like a little kid."

So I asked myself the classic parental-existential question, equivalent to Hamlet's little "to be or not to be" thing.

Where is he getting this from?