Flash Forward?

Last night it happened again. Maybe there is another name for this phenomenon, but for now I will call it “flash forward”. So far both examples involve my daughter.

The first time this happened, we were checking into the Club Med for a family ski vacation, just about two years ago. It was Sunday in and people were signing in and enjoying a complimentary drink. Children were darting about and making new friends for the week. This particular Club Med was mainly inhabited by French, since that was the chief language spoken there. A young French boy had found my daughter, taken and taken her hand. The next thing I noticed he was trying to steal kisses from her. This was the day after her fourth birthday. I “flashed forward” about 10 years, to when she would be a young teen and I would have to really worry about this in earnest. It was as clear as day in my mind’s eye on how this would be. The sensation was not helped when the young man’s parents dragged him away, crying about losing his new friend. I wondered how my daughter would take it, but when I turned around another four year old Lothario had taken the first one’s place. She didn’t seem in the least concerned.

The second time was last night. We went to a colleague’s for dinner. They have two sons, Kevin, the elder is 7 years old, a little more than a year older than my daughter. Eric is about 9 months younger than my son, but both are three years old. My daughter and the older boy struck up an immediate friendship; he spent the evening showing off for her and she spent the evening enjoying the attention. At one point in the evening my son was in tears. When I went down to the basement to investigate, Kevin told me the Boy had hurt himself on a box. When I asked the Boy, he told me that Kevin and the Girl had thrown a box at him. I asked my daughter about this and she assured me it was an accident. My son saw something else interesting to play with and was fine. Later, as we were leaving I asked my children if they had enjoyed themselves. My son replied, “I don’t like Kevin. He’s mean to me. He tried to hurt me.” Okay, maybe yes, maybe no, no reliable witnesses.

What happened next was the strange part. My daughter leapt to her young boyfriend’s defense, “No Daddy! He’s lying! Kevin didn’t try to hurt him!” Soon she was in tears as the two argued over whether Kevin was bad or the Boy was lying. Suddenly, in another “flash forward”, I could picture her defending her scroungy punk teenage boyfriend to me. “Daddy, Spike isn’t a bad guy. Just because he rides a motorcycle and dropped out of school you don’t want to get to know him. That jail thing wasn’t his fault. You don’t understand, you never like my boyfriends!!”

Anybody else ever get these weird visions of mundane stuff in the future?