Time Warp
Matt was gone from the time Eli was 6 months old until he was 16 months. In that time Eli went from only drinking a bottle and slurping down some mashed up baby foods to eating anything in sight. He also learned to sit up, crawl, and walk in that time.
When Matt arrived at the airport and saw Eli for the first time in 10 months he asked me if he could take Eli out of the stroller. He was clearly not sure what would happen when he did. In the days following, Matt freaked out when Eli was eating anything bigger than a raisin. I think in Matt's mind Eli was still that 6 month old little guy that didn't do much at all when he left.
Fast forward a year and Matt leaves again, this time when Gabe is 4 months old and returns when he is 18 months. The same thing happened upon Matt's return. He was confused about how much his baby had grown while he was gone.
To this day Matt looks at kids that are 6 or 9 months old and is clueless as to what their capabilities are. He once asked a mother if her 6 month old was walking. Um no.
I think because Matt was gone while the boys were about 6 to 18 months old, he missed his opportunity to learn about child development during those ages, and he kind of comes off as a dumdum because he is a dad who doesn't know what to expect from an 8 month old.
Today I realized Eli has his own little time warp experience. We lived in Germany from the time he was in 2nd to 4th grade. I think somewhere around that time a kid would normally learn how to tell someone their address. He didn't.
The address we gave people most often was our post office box number and when we would tell someone where our physical home was we just gave a description. House 40 on Grant Circle. The actual address is Building 2040-B Benjamin Franklin Village 68309 Mannheim.
So today Eli was filling out an application to be a student helper at church (more on THAT later) and in the address field he wrote "Sleater Kinney Road".
I inquired why in the world he would write that. We don't live on Sleater Kinney Road.
He said "we live near it".
I pretty much lost my mind for a minute. I grilled him.
What is our house number?
What is our street?
What city to we live in?
He rattled off all that info and then said "I didn't know what it meant when it said address".
I took a chill pill and returned to him with a letter addressed to us. I then explained how to write an address. And I realized that there is a very, very good possibility that he was never taught how to write out his address because 1) nobody writes letters anymore 2) while in Germany our address was quite confusing and it is highly likely teachers at school skipped the "learning your address" day in their curriculum.
Note to self: teach kids how to recite and write their address.
When Matt arrived at the airport and saw Eli for the first time in 10 months he asked me if he could take Eli out of the stroller. He was clearly not sure what would happen when he did. In the days following, Matt freaked out when Eli was eating anything bigger than a raisin. I think in Matt's mind Eli was still that 6 month old little guy that didn't do much at all when he left.
Fast forward a year and Matt leaves again, this time when Gabe is 4 months old and returns when he is 18 months. The same thing happened upon Matt's return. He was confused about how much his baby had grown while he was gone.
To this day Matt looks at kids that are 6 or 9 months old and is clueless as to what their capabilities are. He once asked a mother if her 6 month old was walking. Um no.
I think because Matt was gone while the boys were about 6 to 18 months old, he missed his opportunity to learn about child development during those ages, and he kind of comes off as a dumdum because he is a dad who doesn't know what to expect from an 8 month old.
Today I realized Eli has his own little time warp experience. We lived in Germany from the time he was in 2nd to 4th grade. I think somewhere around that time a kid would normally learn how to tell someone their address. He didn't.
The address we gave people most often was our post office box number and when we would tell someone where our physical home was we just gave a description. House 40 on Grant Circle. The actual address is Building 2040-B Benjamin Franklin Village 68309 Mannheim.
So today Eli was filling out an application to be a student helper at church (more on THAT later) and in the address field he wrote "Sleater Kinney Road".
I inquired why in the world he would write that. We don't live on Sleater Kinney Road.
He said "we live near it".
I pretty much lost my mind for a minute. I grilled him.
What is our house number?
What is our street?
What city to we live in?
He rattled off all that info and then said "I didn't know what it meant when it said address".
I took a chill pill and returned to him with a letter addressed to us. I then explained how to write an address. And I realized that there is a very, very good possibility that he was never taught how to write out his address because 1) nobody writes letters anymore 2) while in Germany our address was quite confusing and it is highly likely teachers at school skipped the "learning your address" day in their curriculum.
Note to self: teach kids how to recite and write their address.
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