Freaky

Memory is weird. I take it for granted, of course, that adults remember all kinds of useless details about everyday life, people they've met, things they see or hear randomly in a heavily mediated world. But watching a 2-year-old acquire memories -- and put them to use -- is a bit of a trip. In the last couple of months, A. has begun asking us out of the blue if we remember certain people she's known or met. "Remember Steve?" she asked the other day, referring to a friend of ours we stayed with in Minneapolis over New Year's. He hadn't come up in conversation recently, and I've no idea why she suddenly thought of him. She soon returned to the monologue she'd been having about her Cheerios, so we weren't able to get any answers from her.

She's doing this sort of thing all the time now. We'll drive past one of the crummy strip malls in town, and she'll remind us of the birthday party she attended back in May. "Remember Keane's party?" Yeah, of course we do. It shouldn't surprise me that she does, but I suppose it takes a while to adjust to the idea that toddlers live in an imaginatively rich world. It seems like just last week that she was lying in her crib, staring with great fascination at her feet; I think I can be forgiven for underestimating her mental complexity.

But here's where things get weird. About 20 minutes ago, while she was playing in her kitchen, she suddenly looked up at me and said, "No pushing!" No one had been pushing anyone. I was sitting at the dining room table, nursing a hangover and watching her play. The dogs -- who do in fact push her over all the time -- were sleeping in another room. No one was pushing anyone.

Then I realized that she was responding to a song that had been playing on the radio. I think she'd seen the video for this song -- "Invasion" by Eisley -- a handful of times on YouTube, but not recently. As you can see, about six seconds into the video, someone gets shoved.

Freaky

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