Rachel's Life Memories and the Drug Talk

Yesterday Rachel was prancing around singing a new song that she had made up. I thought the subject matter was a little funny for a 3-year old. The main line (and pretty much the only line) that was repeated over and over again was something like, "Remember! Remember! Remember your life! So just remember, remember, remember your life!!!!"

I asked her what her song was about, and she said, "Well, Mom, it's just, like, if you miss your life, the song like, reminds you to remember it."

?????

I really can't figure out where she is getting her material from.

Maybe she has been reflecting on her life a little bit. The other night I was babysitting over at Karen's, and Daniel was at home with our kids. They had all been snuggled up on the couch watching a movie, and then I guess Daniel decided to have kind of a serious talk with them about drug use (I am not sure what prompted this, but when they're young enough to still listen to you, you have to take advantage). I think he wanted to scare them a little bit (well, okay, I'm positive that he wanted to scare them a lot) so he told them about how some people try drugs and then get addicted and then even if they want to stop they can't, and then they run out of money and they need to get more money, and so on and so forth, until sometimes they even steal it from people or they try to steal drugs from the drug dealers, and then the drug dealers might want to kill them, etc. The boys were very wide-eyed and interested and asking lots of questions, but all of a sudden Rachel just started sobbing and sobbing. Daniel asked what the matter was, and she wailed through her tears, "I just don't like it when I do drugs!"

She was very depressed and worried about the whole thing. When Daniel told me about it I felt bad - it's always hard to warn your kids about things without making them too scared. Once after we first moved here, Tristan and Oliver were going to walk down to a little playground not far from our house. It was the first time they had gone there by themselves, so I tried to kind of casually have a little talk with them about not talking to strangers and never getting into someone else's car, and if someone tried to make them they should run away fast and yell a lot. I said all this with a smile, assuring them that of course this was not going to happen, but they quickly changed their minds and said that actually they didn't want to go to the playground anymore. Whoops.

Anyway, Daniel had told me that Tristan was asking lots of questions after the drug talk and acting like he understood how the whole thing worked. I asked him what Oliver thought about it, and he said, "Joanne - he's you. What do you think he was worried about?" I thought for about one second and then said, "Oh, right. I guess that means he was probably concerned that people might make him do drugs?" For some reason when I was growing up I was very worried about this. I think I saw a MacGyver episode once where a kid's friends "made" him do drugs, and I always thought that would probably happen to me (it never did). It turns out that Oliver has the exact same concerns. The things you pass on to your kids!

And now Rachel's singing about remembering her life, as if she's nearing the end. Maybe we should hold off on the "serious" talks for awhile. I asked her today if she's still worried about it, and she replied, "Yes, because I think I might do drugs. But if someone tries to make me then when I come home from school I'll just tell you and Dad about it and you guys can work it out." Hmmm. I don't think I'm ready for that yet.