so excited

[mandala]

I'm just wanting to share... not needing advice (but if there is anything you'd like to say, feel free!). I'm glad that I can share this here at this forum, cuz in real life I can only share this enthusiasm with my mother who lives on the other side of the globe. My dh is open to it, but boggled by it, a bit taken aback by it...

Our oldest, almost 3.5 years old, has recently started saying things that indicate memories from another time. He was working on time-related words for a while, as in "was, will be, is", "had, have, will have"... etc, and once he felt comfortable with those, he started expressing some past-tense experiences.

We were watching an animation of a shuttle/robot sent to Mars on the computer... Josh has always been into aircraft and can even recognize smaller aircraft by ear now, so we were browsing online for some more aircraft images when we found the NASA one. He had never really been exposed to the concept of "space", which is very abstract for a child his age. But after he had watched the film several times (he couldn't take his eyes off it), he said: "when I was big, I was in space". He didn't want to say anything else about it, so we left it at that.

A week ago, he said "when I was big, I was a mama too".

And a few days before that, he said he had been travelling with our cat. Today the cat came in from the rain, and Josh, who had opened the door for her, came to me and said: "Zana says she wants to be cleaned up because her back is wet and cold".

We're just leaving it at that. We're thrilled that he is remembering, as I remember too. I'm communicating with him as I would during daily conversation, I remember every word he says that might be out of the ordinary, because things could relate later on. It is fun, I am enjoying this.

 

[deborah]

*S*S*S

HI Mandala,

Please do keep us posted on Josh's - expressions and memories.
I hope your keeping a journal of what he says now -as in a few years it will be difficult to remember exactly what he said. It's a great way to valdiate later expressions.

 

[mandala]

Thanks for all your enthusiasm!

Josh hasn't had any more expressions like the ones mentioned. But then again, our lives have changed for a bit, while my mother is staying with us for 3 weeks... and we're doing a lot of catching up on work around the house. Josh is getting a lot of time to play and be 3.

Yesterday we were having dinner with friends and their 3yo daughter... who said to me "I was a boy before, but now I am a little girl". I said yes, she was... that I had been a boy before too, a fisherman, but now I was a girl too. She looked at me in amazement, for her mother had not acknowledged her memories at all. She'd said something along the lines of "well, she's been saying that sort of stuff for a while now. Very amusing". The mother was rather bemused when I carried on a PL conversation with her daughter during dinner. And Josh jumped in and said that he was a girl before, and when he got bigger, he was a mama". The little girl sure looked surprised.

And another time Josh was playing with a boy friend... something happened, one of them got hurt by the other, Josh and his friend hugged (their choice of action), and the friend said that Josh gave purple hugs. Needless to say that had us all bemused too. Children are so beautiful!

I'll keep you all updated. And of course I'm keeping a journal! This is so much fun! Not because it makes him special or anything, but because this is showing me where to remain open to possibilities as a parent. That in itself is a great teacher! And I am enjoying it!