'How many dollars are you?'

Hooty has a bit of a problem when it comes to any form of measurement. When she was two, when ever someone asked her age, she would say, ‘Two dollars.” Now, she would correctly say that she is three years old.

Last week she was playing ‘Doctor’ with Hubby and me. She poked the plastic toy ear-thermometer in my ear and claimed that my temperature is “Seventy five dollars!” (I guess I am surviving by some miracle if that’s the case!) Hubby was told that his temperature was “Five dollars.” (Pretty cold case ha?)

I think she associates any measurement with dollars, because even when checking her weight on the bathroom scales, she would announce an arbitrary number as her weight coupled with the word ‘dollars.’ This applies to her height chart as well.

Then there is the question of time. Anything that happened from yesterday to 3 years back would be termed as –yep—yesterday! So, she would go, “Yesterday, when I was a little baby, I couldn't talk!”

When it’s time for her to go to bed, she would sometimes ask, “Is it past 8’o clock?”—as in the nursery rhyme ‘Wee willy winky.’

I wonder when children actually start comprehending time. Does it suddenly occur to them that the day is divided into these small units called hours? Or do they just think that morning follows afternoon and then night until they start school and actually learn these things for a fact?