We went to parent-teacher conferences on Friday, which went quite well overall. We discussed Alex's 7th grade math class with his 5th grade teacher, and the only problem seems to be that he can be forgetful about remembering to go to the scheduled classes at the middle school, which are irregular and not daily. His teacher related that Alex forgot to go to the math class the whole week following winter break. I was quite surprised when I heard that, as I had had a vivid, inexplicable dream sometime in early January about missing a math class continually. I don't believe I heard a peep about Alex missing math until the conference! Makes you wonder how many other things you dream about and never know why...
I can't help but wonder, though, if in fact he did mention in passing about missing a math class. It's possible that the dream isn't really so mysterious.
However, I had a dream perhaps a year ago about my former best friend visiting us from Washington. I wrote her about the dream, and there were numerous elements that correlated to events that were currently occurring in her life, which I most certainly did not know about--to include the fact that she had been toying with the idea of us having a visit that same night! Her hair color and a piece of art on the wall were two bits that she'd been focusing on the previous day and that I mentioned. In the dream, I was disturbed that while she was visiting she kept going into the restroom to vomit into a Baby Bjorn potty. In reality, her small son was keeping her up that night with his vomiting! In between vomiting episodes, she was on-line looking for trip ideas to visit with me!
Okay, not the sweetest dream in the world, but I had to mention it--especially as I'd again translated a son's experience to his mother...exactly like me missing math classes in my dream!
These incidents also suggest to me that we're so much more connected than we tend to realize. With certain people at least... Alex would read my mind as a baby and still occasionally seems to. I thought it was primarily his talent, but perhaps we're linked in to one another.
Have I mentioned a few of those incidents? Only a year or two ago, when we were on a family trip, Alex asked if we could do something. I clearly thought, "sure, why not?", but Michael answered him aloud with a firm "no", and I kept my mouth shut. Alex spat back, "Why not? Mom just said yes!" Michael responded, "no, she didn't," and Alex said, "she said, 'sure, why not?'!" Fiona and Michael both told him that I hadn't said anything, but then I had to admit that I had thought it plain as day. This incident stands out only because I have had a ton of similar incidents with Alex where he'll respond to my thoughts, and though I'd think they were only thoughts, I figured that maybe I'd spoken aloud without realizing it. This was great validation to hear Michael and Fiona confirm that I hadn't said it aloud, because when he claimed I had I thought perhaps I really had without knowing (always making me feel a bit batty!).
I remember holding him in his sling when he was under two, and I'd think a clear question and he'd answer, "no" or "yes" without any indication that we weren't having a spoken conversation.
Once, when he was about 3 years old, I was preparing him a bowl of oatmeal. I typically only put salt in his plain oatmeal, but I was remembering nostalgically about how my mother put cinnamon and brown sugar on our oatmeal. Alex, who was seated at the table, began to giggle and laughed, "Cinnamon's playing in my oatmeal!" I had been merely musing to myself, but he had picked up on something that he didn't even understand...the Cinnamon he knew was a character on Blue's Clues! He'd never been introduced to the spice and had no reason to associate it with oatmeal.
My theory is that Alex receives clear, word-for-word messages. He doesn't necessarily understand them, and he can definitely be oblivious to emotions, but he does 'hear' the words--so much so that he won't realize they weren't spoken aloud. Fiona, on the other hand, is attune to my emotions. I haven't seen the sort of mind-reading that Alex has, but she can sense my emotions amazingly. This could be simply a great sensitivity, but perfectly normal and not extrasensory. She is in tune, though, and will bring up subjects that I'm thinking about. Nothing that I can't explain away, though, yet!
No comments:
Post a Comment