Yesterday

Julia, like most 3 year olds, has a relatively limited understanding of time. In her view, anything that happened before the present day was "yesterday," whether it was a year ago, a few weeks ago, or literally yesterday. Since this can sometimes cause alarm in people (like when she told the baby-sitter "Yesterday I threw up in my bed," when it had really happened a month prior), I've tried explaining that yesterday is actually just the day that came right before this one, and if she wants to refer to a different day in the past, she can just say "The other day." This caused even more confusion, and before I knew it, Julia was saying "tomorrow" instead of "yesterday." (As Ethan put it, there are two options for describing anything besides today; "yesterday," or "tomorrow." So of the two choices, tomorrow would be the "other" day.) Julia just referred to three different "yesterdays" as we ate lunch this afternoon:

JULIA: Mom, are you eating leftovers for lunch?
ME: Yes, this is the tofu leftover from dinner on Wednesday.
JULIA: Mom, do you remember that yesterday when we were eating the tofu I thought it was too spicy and I just wanted bread instead?
ME: Yes, I remember you thought it was spicy.
JULIA: (eyeing the banana she's eating) Mom, do bananas grow in the ground like carrots?
ME: No, bananas grow on trees.
JULIA: Does basil grow on a tree?
ME: No, basil is like a plant that grows up from the ground. We pick the leaves off and cook with them.
JULIA: And do we cook with lettuce?
ME: Well, we don't usually cook with lettuce. We use it in our salad.
JULIA: Yesterday when I was at Katie's house Katie's mommy was pretending to be a doggie and she said, "Lettuce is disgusting!"
ME: (not bothering to point out that said incident happened about 3 weeks ago) Oh, really?
JULIA: Mom, do you know what I think is disgusting? Dasparagus.
ME: Well, asparagus is really good for you, so I hope that someday you'll like it.
JULIA: Do you remember yesterday when I was eating my dasparagus that I said I don't think I really like it?
ME: Yes, I remember that last week you didn't like your asparagus.
JULIA: Well, maybe when I'm bigger like 7 or 8 I'll like my dasparagus. Because I think that girls who are 7 or girls who are 8 like dasparagus, but I think that girls who are only 3 don't really like to eat dasparagus.

Perhaps when she's 7 or 8 and starts to like asparagus, she will ask me, "Mom? Do you remember yesterday when I thought dasparagus was disgusting?"