We recently had a fourth child, so Jack is fascinated with babies. What they do, how they learn, how they’re born, and where they come from*. Jack is obsessed with babies in utero. Or, as he calls it, the Baby World.
You see, there is a whole Baby World inside a Mama’s tummy. One where all of the babies she’s going to have (and others as well, it would seem), have a whole community thing happening. They hang out, they race cars, they learn how to be “babies” for when they’re born.
Jack says he remembers being there.
I know a lot of children have pre-birth recall. I don’t doubt that Jack remembers some things about being born (he doesn’t seem to ever forget anything), but he also has a penchant for weaving a good tale. He’s figured out that if I am typing on the iPad while he’s talking, I’m writing down his story. As a result, he’s started to embellish things a bit. Often, his brothers join in.
On one particular occasion, while discussing the goings-on in Baby World, his two younger brothers told me all about the racetrack there, and how the babies all have fast cars and have races.
The fact that they had just watched “Cars” for the billionth time was not lost on me.
Jack tells me he was a sort of mentor in Baby World. He played with the other babies, he taught them to crawl, and teaching them to walk “better” (either he’s not a very good teacher, or they weren’t very good learners).
He told me “I crawled a lot of times with the other babies. Wait… there’s no other babies.”
What?
He had just spent days telling me the intricacies of this other world populated with a multitude of unborn folks in my uterus, and in one instant, it was gone. I’m not sure where it went, but now when he talks about being in Mama’s tummy, he only mentions himself and his brothers (they all believe they were there together, pre-birth). But no racing, no lessons.
I’m not sure what happened to end Baby World, and I’m a bit sad to not hear the stories anymore. I’m thinking the reality of Kai, baby boy Baskin number four, changed his mind.
Now he has other interests. Like carrying a beanie baby in his shirt and “giving birth” to it. My boys take turns being the “mama” and the “baby” – “mama” has “baby” under a blanket, then gives birth.
Yes, this is what my boy children do for entertainment.
Jack is already talking about the children he’s going to have when he grows up and gets married, and how he’s going to be as a father. I’m glad he has a great role model to follow in his Dad.
I’ll be really happy, though, when he takes an interest in learning how to change a diaper.
*We have already had to have the talk with him, but that’s a crazy story for another post
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