He can recognise most letters in the alphabet and he has an amazing memory for conversations that took place months ago, but theres some pretty basic stuff that you take for granted as an adult that he doesn't know. We chat a lot and he has a lot of questions but some things are really hard to explain. Here are my top 6 in order:
6. Money
An example conversation at a soft play:
"can I have a cake?"
"no"
"why?"
"because it's expensive here, and we've got some cake at home you can have"
"is it a million billion pounds?"
"yes"
Example conversation 2:
"why does daddy have to got to work? why can't he stay and play?"
"because when he works they give him money and we need that for food and to live in a house"
"if daddy found magic beans then he wouldn't have to go to work... ...but then it would grow into a beanstalk and a scary giant would come down and... we'd have to make sure the rabbit was in her hutch."
A few days latter; "if I had a cow I wouldn't swap it for magic beans, I'd just keep the cow."
So yeah he doesn't really get money but he will do, it's easy enough to understand when you're a bit older.
5. Live TV/Radio
Unlike in our day, almost everything Percy watches is on demand (and 90% of the time it's Paw Patrol) but when for some reason we are watching or listening to something thats live, he can't understand why I can't rewind. Like one time we were in the car and a song came on the radio that he wanted playing again - cue massive tantrum while I try to explain the concept of live broadcasting.
4. Time
He gets 'lunch time', 'tomorrow', 'in a few days' and is starting to get the concept of 'next month' but he can't understand 'when you're a grown up' or 'before you were born'. Every picture he sees of me and Dan before he was born he asks "was I in your tummy?" and if I say "no that was before you were in my tummy" he can't really handle it. He says "but who was looking after me, where was I?" When I went to Speke Hall (a National Trust property) the staff were trying to teach him about the Tudor period. Seriously guys, he doesn't care he just wants to run around your big house and play, like at least 50% of the people there. The Tudors are dull.
3. Physics
I use the word physics in the loosest sense to describe all the physical stuff he doesn't get. Like when he was making a road jigsaw which was going into the wall and he asked me to move the wall for him.
He understands more about physics than 10 month old Eric though. Eric is at that awkward age where if I put him on a sofa and walked off he would do a head first dive off it and really hurt himself. The only way to really learn about gravity is to fall off stuff though.
2. Death
Percy's described his first experience of death at 22 months old "woodlouse oh no, Harriet stamping" but his more recent fascination all started when I though it would be nice to draw a family tree with him. I drew parents, grandparents and then his 3 living great grandparents which sort of then left gaps for his 5 dead great grandparents, who I foolishly mentioned. Since then we've had several death related questions, including "when will those children die?" and "when we die will our house die too?" and, in the middle of tea without any context, "grandpa...when you get old then you die". And then Great grandpa's dog died and there were a lot more questions (she actually was put down but we didn't explain that one).
So far he only knows that old people or "fighting people" die. That's from when he saw a WW1 statue that I attempted to explain. I can't tell him that young people die, I feel like if he knew there was a possibility that we could die he wouldn't cope very well with that information.
1. God.
This is a tricky one because we are Christians so we want to teach him about God, but I don't want him to think other religions or ways of life are wrong and I sort of want him to think for himself but maybe 3 is a bit young for that. Some Bible stories have a nice moral theme, like the good samaritan. Some are just nice stories like the Christmas story, but a lot of the Bible is about God's people having victory over other tribes like David and Goliath... and even as an adult Christian I do find that a bit awkward. And then theres the easter story which is the most important one and I love it, but it's not that child friendly is it? it combines 3 of the most difficult concepts: the past, death and God. godd luck with that Sunday school.
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