I grow increasingly surprised at the memories of these two small girls. Lately there's been a lot of talk of every hotel trip we've ever taken. "Remember, we slept in the bunkbeds, and we swam in the pool?" "Remember, we took our floaties?" They are terribly fond of starting and ending stories with "Remember?"
I remember visiting Grandma & Papa when they lived in Batavia. We went to a mall that had a merry-go-round in it. Months later we went to the mall again, and Ella says, "Is this the mall with the merry-go-round?" We'd been to malls around here inbetween, and she never asked it then. She was 2 at the time. She also remembers which ones have little potties.
Out of nowhere one of them will start in, "Remember, Mom, you were gone, and we were under a blanket with Daddy outside, and we watched the fireworks?" Um, yes, that was last summer.
If I tell the girls we're going to Grandma's house, but we take a different route, Ella pipes up in the back seat "Where are we going??? This isn't the way to Grandma's!" She also remembers how to get to church, Target and Sharon's (where she gets her hair cut).
Here's the kicker. Last night Natalie (2, remember?) says to Daddy, "Daddy, remember I was scared of Chacha the frog, and the big snake, and we saw Sharkey the Shark?" It took us a second to figure out what she'd said it was so random. And yes, that was a trip we took to the very big mall, last July, when we went to Underwater World and Rainforest Cafe. We haven't talked about Sharkey or Chacha since. Six months later the 2 yr old is talking about it again. I don't even think there'd been anything frog, snake or shark related to jog her memory.
There's just no easy outs with these girls. They'll remember if you say "we'll do ____ later." I hope all of this memory work translates to school. I can see it now, "Remember, the Magna Carta was originally issued in 1215 by the English and influenced the development of common law. Remember that it was written because of disagreements between Pope Innocent III, King John and the English barons regarding the rights of the king? Remember that???"
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7 years ago
2 comments:
If it makes you feel any better--Evrett is exactly the same way. He turns 3 next week, but regularly brings up such things as Halloween 2006 when he was not yet 2, his trip to New York w/just Daddy in July 2006 (when he was not yet speaking in sentences), and various other random things with no context whatsoever. Ditto on the traffic route exclamations. It just means our kids are very verbal and have good visual memory. Also, just maybe that they're a tiny bit freakishly smart. But that's just the preschool teacher in me--and my parental bias.
I am here to say that it is all very selective. They will remember anything that benefits them (from their point of view), but not chores, not school, not lectures on taking shoes off at the door or hanging up jackets instead of letting them drop to the floor. That's life...What would we do as parents, though, if we never had to help them remember? Isn't that our sole purpose in life?
--Southern Belle Wannabe
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