On a regular basis, she'll drop cryptic statements like, "When I was an adult, I had three kids, too, and their names were Reese, Brooke, and Kerrington." Or, "When I was in preschool, I made a ceramic nest and wrote my name at the bottom."
These statements represent a distinct category of fallacy because they all stem from her speaking about a fabricated future as if it were the past. They're not to be confused with regular statements of inaccuracy, such as the time that she claimed, "When I was a baby, I once was sucked up in the vacuum."
I attempt to speak truth into her young life. But you're not an adult. In fact, you're not even four. Or, But you're not in preschool yet.
Each time I utter these corrective statements, she regards me with pity as if I'm delusional. She seems so sure of herself at these moments. It's unnerving.
I add evidence to support my claims. "Honey, you didn't make a ceramic nest in preschool. Your sister made one when she was in preschool." I hold out the nest in my palm, turn it upside down, and point out the letters carved into the bottom that spell her sister's name. "Look. It spells Reese. R-e-e-s-e."
She shakes her head. "Well, that R looks like a B, so it spells my name: Brooke." She returns to her coloring, unaffected, "I did make a nest in preschool, you know."
It's like she has a time machine. Perhaps she's stopping back to share stories about a time yet to come, and if only I'd listen I'd realize that my eventual invention of a flux capacitor will make time travel in a Delorean possible.
Or, she has a very loose understanding of grammar rules surrounding the future tense.
One of the two.
What a head scratcher...R's DO look quite a bit like B's!
ReplyDeleteHa! My little one is the opposite with and uncanny sense of the past. She frequently begins statements with "You remember when I was a baby . . . . " and then tells about something she "did" as an infant! :)
ReplyDeletelol...my son always tells me stories about when he grows up and he's a girl. oh my.
ReplyDelete