Where are these speech patterns coming from?

Ryder has used "I wondered" (always in the past tense, which is part of why it's so strange because he's talking about present tense stuff) each of the past two days as well. Things like, "What's this book about, I wondered, Grandma," and "Who's chair is that, I wondered." And yesterday, there was a muffin incident. Ryder wanted a muffin as soon as I was done baking them, so I told him I would put one on a plate, but that he had to wait for it to cool. Later, he wanted another muffin. When I brought it over to his plate, he said, "It will be too hot, so you need to wait for it to cool." So I told him that this time it wouldn't be too hot since they had cooled. And he replied, "It's not too hot anymore, I'm afraid." I'm afraid??? Where does he get this stuff? I know that he's got some "adult" speech patterns, but this is a little much!