I pick Liana up at daycare, and as we are walking home I ask, “So what did you do today?”
Without missing a beat, she said:
“I fell out of a tree and hurt my wrist and my mom gave me a note to get out of gym class.”
Ummmm. Liana is two and a half. She doesn’t climb trees in daycare, and she has no idea what gym class is.
As delighted as I am that Liana seems to have mastered the pre-reading skill of identifying with the primary character in a story, I continue to be frustrated that she often tells me elaborate things that aren’t true.
One day she told me a long and detailed story about a little girl in daycare throwing food, and subsequently getting a time out. As she told and retold the story, I started to be suspicious. The food, it turns out, was chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, and broccoli. Hmmmm. The next day I asked the daycare provider about the incident. There was NO incident. No food throwing. No cake or cookies in this organic only household. And the child in question had not gotten a time out in months.
After a late winter snowstorm, I picked her up from daycare, and asked her if Beatriz, her daycare provider, had taken them out in the snow. She said yes. I was delighted. I asked her what they did in the snow. She said they made snowballs and snowmen and snow angles. I looked at her pants, the same ones I had dressed her in that morning. She did not look like she had been making snow angels. I asked who went out in the snow. She named two of the kids. I asked if Beatriz had gone too. She said “No, she stayed home.” Ummmm. So my daycare provider is sending two two year olds and a three year old out onto the urban streets, unaccompanied, to play in the snow? And they were so careful out there by themselves, that they didn’t even get wet or dirty!
Then there is Cousin Lily. I have no idea who Cousin Lily is. I thought she was a character in a story she reads at daycare. Or a TV show she watches at daycare. I don’t know anyone named Lily, and apparently neither does my daycare provider. But often in the evenings, we await Cousin Lily’s arrival. She never seems to really arrive, but Liana waits for her a lot. ”Mommy! We can’t take a bath now! Cousin Lilly is coming!” “Cousin Lily is coming, so we have to get ready. She can play with the bear and I can play with the rabbit!” Sometimes she tells me stories about things that Cousin Lily did earlier in the day. Things she ate or said.
Liana has a creative mind, and a fertile imagination. And I want to nurture her creativity. But reality and fantasy blur together, and I often can’t tell which is which!
Without missing a beat, she said:
“I fell out of a tree and hurt my wrist and my mom gave me a note to get out of gym class.”
Ummmm. Liana is two and a half. She doesn’t climb trees in daycare, and she has no idea what gym class is.
As delighted as I am that Liana seems to have mastered the pre-reading skill of identifying with the primary character in a story, I continue to be frustrated that she often tells me elaborate things that aren’t true.
One day she told me a long and detailed story about a little girl in daycare throwing food, and subsequently getting a time out. As she told and retold the story, I started to be suspicious. The food, it turns out, was chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, and broccoli. Hmmmm. The next day I asked the daycare provider about the incident. There was NO incident. No food throwing. No cake or cookies in this organic only household. And the child in question had not gotten a time out in months.
After a late winter snowstorm, I picked her up from daycare, and asked her if Beatriz, her daycare provider, had taken them out in the snow. She said yes. I was delighted. I asked her what they did in the snow. She said they made snowballs and snowmen and snow angles. I looked at her pants, the same ones I had dressed her in that morning. She did not look like she had been making snow angels. I asked who went out in the snow. She named two of the kids. I asked if Beatriz had gone too. She said “No, she stayed home.” Ummmm. So my daycare provider is sending two two year olds and a three year old out onto the urban streets, unaccompanied, to play in the snow? And they were so careful out there by themselves, that they didn’t even get wet or dirty!
Then there is Cousin Lily. I have no idea who Cousin Lily is. I thought she was a character in a story she reads at daycare. Or a TV show she watches at daycare. I don’t know anyone named Lily, and apparently neither does my daycare provider. But often in the evenings, we await Cousin Lily’s arrival. She never seems to really arrive, but Liana waits for her a lot. ”Mommy! We can’t take a bath now! Cousin Lilly is coming!” “Cousin Lily is coming, so we have to get ready. She can play with the bear and I can play with the rabbit!” Sometimes she tells me stories about things that Cousin Lily did earlier in the day. Things she ate or said.
Liana has a creative mind, and a fertile imagination. And I want to nurture her creativity. But reality and fantasy blur together, and I often can’t tell which is which!
