Just a bunch of crazy coincidences.... Right?

I was saying to Steve last week that I had heard on a number of occasions from various people now that the LGBB can read our minds. I have always put it in the "Oooooo-kay" basket. I err on the side of healthy scepticism, you know a bit like: "You've made the statement, now let the facts speak for themselves". Thing is, with things that are mostly in unseen dimensions, it's kinda hard for any "facts" to be concrete or confirm themselves absolutely.

Or so I reckon, anyway.

So here we were, having this rather uncomfortable conversation. Uncomfortable mainly because Steve was now doing the "Ooooo-kay" thing, even though I have recently become more and more convinced that, if not reading my mind, the LGBB was certainly doing an A+ job of guessing things I was thinking very accurately.

"Like how?" Steve wanted to know.

And that's the thing. I can never remember examples. It was the same when I confessed to a girlfriend (last week as well, which was why it was at the front of my mind, hence mentioning it to Steve). She wanted me to list a few "like how's" and I couldn't. It was just that too many times now, as I tried to explain to her, I've been thinking or concentrating on something and Lolly will call out, from wherever she is (and usually it happens when she's not really doing or concentrating on anything as such, like when she's doodling on paper, etc.), "Mumma, what you thinking?" She only asks this when I am deep in thought.

So, easy enough, I'd reckon, to put that sort of circumstance down to her reading my face. She's done that for as long as I can recall her talking in sentences. It's not much, on its own. Sometimes I'd ask, "What do you think I'm thinking?" and I'd think of something quickly, like "blue car"... I remember one time, she said "car! blue!" when I did that. I put that, too, down to a lucky guess. She wasn't even two at the time.

This past weekend, after the discussion we had about it, the three of us were outside doing our own things. But together. Steve leaned over and was reading the paper I had spread out under the LGBB's painting easel. She was in her cubby house on the deck, singing. Suddenly she stopped and leaned her head out, calling to him, "Daddy whatchoo thinking?"

I asked him to tell me if he had just been concentrating on something. "Yeah," he said, "I was just trying to work out from this article's map where they were talking about with this new building."

Anyway, lately her questions of what I'm thinking have increasingly become replaced with actually saying out loud what I was actually just thinking, as part of what she is absent-mindedly singing or saying as she plays or draws. I regularly - at least once a week - stop short and think to myself, "Nah! She couldn't have just said that, I was just thinking it!" But it's hard to prove. Especially to the Sceptics' ultimate poster-boy, who we happen to live with.

The best example of this I can give was Sunday night. We had arrived home late and I needed to make something quick and easy for Lolly's tea. I was pulling ingredients out of the fridge, thinking to myself as I went. I would make her a plate of finger food type things. Cherry tomatoes, little blocks of sheep's feta cheese, salmon sandwich sushi rolls (thinned out bread, crusts off, rolled up with salmon and cream cheese inside and then sliced into rolls - cute and easy!). But it didn't really seem like very much. Then I remembered I had some ricotta in the fridge. "I'll make her a ricotta sandwich too, that'll pad it out," I thought as I worked.

Meanwhile, Steve and Lolly were kicking back on the couch. Steve was playing a game on his iPod Touch, the LGBB was sitting with notepad and pen writing a "shopping list" (read: scribbling on the pad and listing ingredients we needed at the shops). I wasn't listening to them, but was hearing Lol say stuff occasionally... "bread, eggs.... milk, we need milk..."

Steve called out to me, "Are you making a ricotta sandwich for her for tea, by any chance?"

"Uhh... yeah, among other things," I replied distractedly. "Why?"

"She's just 'written' on her shopping list... "ricotta... sandwich."

We looked at each other. I smirked at him and raised my eyebrows, "Well, now what do you think?"

"Yeah... that's pretty good," is all he will still admit.

What I reckon is, sometimes the LGBB can pick up words here and there but if she doesn't understand what we're thinking, she asks. At other times, she is able to actually say what she hears me think. I know it sounds bizarre. And to be quite frank, I think many, many young children can do this. It's just that..... well, do we ever really listen to what they're saying? Do we stop often and long enough to tune in to them? I wonder if she will switch off too. We all seem to, before we even hit adolescence. I hope she doesn't, but I also don't really know if I want this feeling of being 'different' to be in her future. All I can do is teach her she has something special - normal - and the rest will be up to her. I sure as hell am not going to wave her off. But I'm not "into" encouraging it, either, for then it is not pure (ie. you can't be sure after that when a child is merely trying to do party tricks).

I don't know. It's all just very..... interesting and special.

Have any of you ever had any specific things like this happen? Would love to hear from you! As always, if you don't want to openly comment, feel free to email.