Sometime last year, my daughter asked me to draw a dress for her in the car on the way to school... (so, we make full use of those red lights! Great therapy for my road rage). So I drew the dress and handed the sheet of paper back to her. She drew a head/face, arms, legs and then said,'mummy, I'm four!' and I thought,'what is she on about? She knows she is not four yet' then she says 'when I'm wearing the dress, I'm four' (PS:she was just over three at the time);
It got me thinking about the absence of tense (aka TIME) in the grammar of the little ones. They seem not to grasp the concept of past, present and future. It's all just the same to them. I cannot count how many times I tried to explain to her what' next week' means. Now, we spend years teaching them about was, is, will be. Ironically, we as adults spend our entire lives trying to cheat time! Trying to remove time from its focal point in our existence.