Time

When raising a child, the concepts that are harder for them to grasp become very apparent. The english language is difficult and most don't realize it until you see it through a child's eyes. For Tait there are 2 things in particular that he struggles with: pronouns and time.

The pronoun thing may be because he sometimes has difficulty determining a person's sex. He told me that Jayden Smith on the Justin Beiber movie was a girl. I can understand his thinking. He had long hair and was wearing a red jacket, skinny jeans and a blinking heart pendent. A lot of people could make that mistake. I can only imagine how difficult it is to decide whether to use he, she, ma'am or sir when you can't figure out the male/female thing. I can't even count the times that he's told me "Yes sir!" At least he has manners :)

The concept of time is a-WHOLE-nother issue. 10 minutes may as well be 10 years in that child's eyes. Sitting in timeout for 3 minutes is a devastating blow to his day. When he's not ready to leave, his remark is always, "But Mom, I love it here. Can we just stay for like 3 more minutes?" To test how skewed his understanding of hours and minutes are I asked him last week how long he stays at school during the day. His response, "I stay at school for 6 or 8 minutes." Crazy kid. He's there from about 8am to 6:15pm. I guess time flies when you're having fun!

Speaking of school, he's mighty proud of his school work and likes to "help" mommy with her school work too. I'm shocked sometimes at things he does at school. It's a real slap in the face that my baby is no longer a baby :(

Back to the time issues... Tait also thinks that anything that has happened previously is either last night or yesterday. Last Christmas was yesterday. When we went to visit grandma last month it was last night. It makes it difficult when he brings something up and says "Remember, it was yesterday?!" In actuality, it was probably his birthday in February or when he was visiting his Mimi in the summer of 2010 and went to the waterpark. Sometimes I think he remembers everything.

Two conversations from our trip to the Rangers game last week:
Tait (taking a drink of my soda): I've never had a coke before.
Me: Yes you have.
Tait: Well not yesterday. I was only 3 years old.
Josh: Are you 3 years old now?
Tait (with an "I can't believe you said that" look): No silly. I'm 4!

Conversation #2
Tait: Mom, why are you wearing a boy shirt?
Me: What do you mean? I'm wearing a Rangers shirt.
Tait: Yeah, but Rangers are boys. Why don't you have a pink Rangers shirt? They have a pink monster truck for girls. It's called Madusa.

Can't argue with that!