Our little time traveller

At 4 and a half, Luca is well and truly out of the toddler phase. It’s as if we’ve blinked and jumped to the future, and he’s now able to communicate his big feelings using language more often.

Many times when he was 2 and 3, before his language had developed enough whereby he could communicate his emotions, I remember feeling confused and thinking “if only you could tell us what’s up, we can help you”. But of course, more often than not he couldn’t, especially at that age, so as parents, we are left doing our best to be that calming presence whilst trying to help our kids navigate their big feelings.

There are plenty of moments that left both my wife and me confuzzled. One of which Luca talked about recently, it was such a fascinating conversation. Luca took us back to a specific moment, 18 months prior, talking about the emotions he was experiencing, emotions that at the time, he couldn’t communicate. It’s as if we have this little time traveller who’s now in the future, giving us insights into how he was feeling back then.

We were staying in a hotel after a trip to Legoland when he was 3yo, all was well but as we waited to be seated for breakfast, out of nowhere he put the breaks on and an epic meltdown started. Needless to say, we were puzzled 🤯 We did our best to calm him and understand what was going on, but we were stumped. We didn’t force things, this was out of the ordinary so we listened and took breakfast to our room. This may be permissive to some, but as parents, you know your child, you know when a boundary is needed and when you need to be respectful of their wishes.

Over a year and a half later, we were talking about Legoland and Luca says “Remember when I was upset and didn’t want breakfast because the music was too loud?”.

Ah! It was the MUSIC 💡 It’s amazing how our little ones hold onto these moments. Luca could recall everything from that experience and gave us specific insights as to how he was feeling at the time. As parents, we can assume they won’t remember and it’s no big deal, but it is. How we respond to them and make them feel in those challenging moments really does matter ❤️