The Mind of an Almost-Three-Year-Old

May 8, 2009

Gurgaon, India

I have been fascinated for a long time about how Currin's mind works. I think I wrote about this in my first blog, but every day, I am increasingly fascinated at his line of questions, which really indicate how his mind works.

He asks me questions that I really don't know the answer to. Like, "Mommy, why do we scratch when we have an itch?" Or, "Mommy, is God a person? Who is his wife?" He has also been asking me why I still love him after he does bad things. These seem like pretty mature questions to me!

By the way, the words he chooses are also funny to me. Like he uses the word "after" a lot. For example, "Mommy, after I do bad things, why you still love me?" Or, "After I take a nap, and then we'll go to Charlie's house."

Tonight, we were reading a Diego book, and Diego was using night goggles. Currin told me we use goggles to see in the swimming pool. I had brought him and Charlie each a pair of goggles last month when we were in Goa. He put them on for a nanosecond before insisting I take them off, but he obviously remembered the word. It is still so interesting to me the way he pulls together things from various parts of his life and connects them.

The other day, we were talking about Grandpa Red, and it's tough to talk about that subject without eventually saying that Grandpa Red is actually "dead". You can avoid that word for a long time, but when the answer for every question is "why?", you eventually come to an explanatory dead end (no pun intended).

The way this came up was that I said Grandpa Red used to say that I was born talking, and Currin wanted to know what that meant. After I explained it to him, he couldn't understand how I could actually have been talking at birth, so I explained that Grandpa had been joking. So he said, "Grandpa Red is funny. After I go home to the US, I will tell Grandpa Red he's funny."

Anyway, after explaining the whole thing, Currin said, "I wish I had my Grandpa Red back." I nearly cried right then and there. I wish I had him back, too.

Currin's way of talking is really pretty cute. He is very deliberate with his words, and there is a slight pause between nearly all of them, almost like someone who has just learned to read who is reading out loud. They definitely know the words, but there is just a little space between them.

He still doesn't say his R's quite right, which is a problem because of his name. Whenever people ask his name, he always answers, but no one ever understands him because it sounds like "Kuh-wun". Now he has taken to spelling it, but he usually forgets the "i". "What's your name?" "Kuh-wun. C-U-R-R-N, Kuh-wun." It's very cute.

His L's were quite late, too, but he mostly has those now. They are quite Indian-sounding actually. He curls his tongue upward to say them and maybe points the tip a little bit, so it is a very pointy-sounding L. Every so often, after I picked him up from school, we would go out to lunch together, and then he'd start saying, "Let's go for lunch" with that cute pause and pointy "L". Really sweet.

His accent is definitely getting pretty Indian. Most of it doesn't bother me. Like he says "feeling" a lot. For example, "I'm feeling cold," instead of just "I'm cold". Or he says, "It's orange in color", instead of just "It's orange." Or he says, "I'm taking a rest, Mommy." But there are some things that I really cannot take. Like the v/w thing. Man, that bugs me. Sometimes he says "wary" instead of "very", and I knew I was in trouble last week when he said "Grandma Wicky". Ugh... He is also saying "t" instead of "th", like "ting" instead of "thing". In my logical head, I am not wary vorried because I know his accent will even out when we spend any time in the US. But in my "for the moment" head, I have to say it annoys me. I nearly headed to the airport when he said someone's stomach was "paining" them.

He is a good kid actually. Well, 95% of the time. He is so loving, and that makes me really proud. We are a very touchy/feely/kissy kind of family, and I really love that, but he hasn't quite learned that you can't just kiss everyone. He has been kissing other people's babies and stuff, and he really gets upset when the older ones move away from him or don't want to kiss or hug back. I don't know the age to start holding back on things like kissing him on the lips or letting him be naked or whatever. For now, I'm not worried.

He also still carries his security blanket, which has been dubbed "blankie". It's just a cloth diaper, and we have had at least a hundred of them over the last three years. When he started sucking his thumb (at four months), he just sort of picked that thing up. (He was a big spit-up baby, so I always had one sitting on his lap to clean up accidents, and he just took a liking to it.) He used to seek comfort from it when he hurt himself, and he is mostly over that. But he will still carry it all day every day if we let him. This is another thing where I'm not quite sure when to cut it off. Interestingly, he only sucks his thumb when he has the blankie.

I'm not sure who said that a kid has to suck his thumb until he's five before dental problems creep up, but Currin's teeth are certainly messed up from sucking his thumb. His top teeth protrude out, and his lower teeth invert in a "V" shape right where his thumb goes. I don't know how this changes over time or whether his permanent teeth will still bear that shape. I am guessing he'll need braces anyway, so I don't worry too much about it. I really don't care how much he sucks his thumb, except for his teeth. But people in India hate that.

I find that interesting because they let their kids do all sorts of stupid shit and run around and control the household. But if Currin, or even Maya, so much as gets his hand close to his mouth, some Indian is pulling it away from him. I think it's none of their business.

Currin's hair was quite curly when he was little. He HATED haircuts until he was over 2 1/2 years old. We did everything to distract him, but he would scream and cry. It was awful. Actually, I used to cut it myself until he got too wiggly. Now, he is pretty OK with it. A couple of months ago, I took him to get his hair cut and also got him a foot massage. He LOVES foot massages. He'd always say, "Do a 'ssage, do a 'ssage" (like the last syllable of "massage"). I think Sameer's mom started him on it. The good news is that he also think it's fun to give them. Anyway, the foot massage/haircut trick worked like a champ, and ever since then, he has been pretty OK getting a haircut.

He has gotten to be a pretty bad hitter, which I am not happy about. I'm actually not sure what to do about it. I am wondering at what age a parent's ability to punish actually has an impact on a child, because it definitely does not happen at age 2. At the end of the day, if he says "no", there is not much I can do about it. I have tried all kinds of stuff, but the thing he hates most is when I lock myself in the bathroom, almost like giving myself a time-out. It is far more torturous for him not to be able to come to me than it is for him to be in the bathroom or other time-out location himself.

I have realized, though, why people with kids can pretty much only hang out with other people with kids. At least when Currin hits someone, the other parents can understand that I'm really not a horrible parent; it's just that kids hit. And bite. Fortunately, he has not been a horrible biter (although he has been known to do it). But last winter, a vampire child at his school bit him so badly that even now, five months later, he still has a giant scar. I am glad that for whatever reason, things don't bother me as much as they used to. I didn't get mad or upset that it had happened because I understood that there was little the teacher could have done to stop it. Those things take only a split second.

The only down side was that he got pretty sick after that. And at his Annual Day (which was just a day or two later), he walked off stage in the middle of "Shoo Fly" and threw up on the side of the stage. Poor kid.

If I had to describe him with just one word, it would probably be "curious". He is really hungry for learning things. He loves to know why and how things work, and it is a genuine curiosity. If he asks "why?", he really means it. And if I try to blow him off or give him some shortcut answer, he tells me, "Mommy, use your words and tell me."

He is quite a small kid, based on the charts. In the two years since we moved to India, I think he has gained maybe 3 pounds. But he is quite coordinated, really good at making baskets, hitting a soft baseball with a bat, playing "tennis" with racquets. He also like to jump off stuff, and he plays "fall down on the cushions" (pull all the cushions of the couch, stack them in front of the ottoman, and fall off the ottoman onto them). But he is also quite cautious. For example, he still sleeps in his Pack'n'Play, and even though he could easily jump out of it, he only does that when his stool is there. He is also quite cautious around the pool. All of this is just fine with me.

OK, I should go to bed now. I have not been sleeping much lately, and it is catching up with me. Good night.

Signing off from the couch in Gurgaon.