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I like to think that my kid is pretty smart. Every once in a while she’ll do something like mash silly putty into her hair or stuff her nose full of cheerios, but for the most part she’s always been pretty advanced for her age. She asks nonstop questions and seems genuinely interested in learning new things. Some concepts, however, she still finds completely baffling.
Somehow in her four years of life, Alaina has never met two people with the same name. She has two grammies, but these are referred to by her as “the food grammy” or the “playing grammy”, names that refer to how each respectively spoils her rotten. There is a little boy in her class with the same name as me, but for now I’m still dad, daddy if she wants something. I’ve tried explaining to her that there are other Alainas in the world, but she seems to think I’m joking. In her head, another Alaina would look like her and have the same life, just in another place. The first time she meets one it’s going to blow her mind.
Aging still confuses her. She no longer thinks that she was reincarnated, but can’t wrap her head around the idea that there was ever a time “before we met her.” Her most recent hypothesis is that she must have been a statue that we magically made alive, thus explaining the fact that there is a limit to how far back her memories go. She understands that her mother and I were both young once, but refuses to believe that she will never catch up to us or have to take care of us when we are babies again. The fact that there is now a twenty-something Dora on television along with the tween version, and that she can watch both the original Looney Toons characters and the baby Looney Toons seems to confirm to her that we are lying about time being linear.
Time, in general, confuses her as a concept. She’s had her numbers and letters down for a while now, but has no idea how long an hour or a year is. This morning she told me it was time to get up because it was “seven, polka dot, polka dot, one, five.” The words “hurry up” hold absolutely no meaning to her.
I guess when you spend your entire life having other people bathe and wipe you, modesty is a strange idea to grasp. Unfortunately, so is privacy. No matter how big of a breakfast Alaina eats, she will immediately begin pestering me for food the second that I sit down for my morning, er, Facebook check. I amost think that she is watching and waiting for the door to close. Showers are the same. We have three toilets in our home, but her morning business is almost always done on the throne directly next to my shower, a small bathroom off the master bedroom that is in no way convenient to where she just was.
I’ve been equally unsuccessful trying to explain to her why farts aren’t in any way funny, but if I’m honest I can see why she doesn’t understand that one.
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This post was previously published on www.thirstydaddy.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Jeremy Barnes
