Been there, done that, as folks say (and it was quite a while back — the kids have kids). That period in a child's life, though, is a short one, and most folks

Been there, done that, as folks say (and it was quite a while back — the kids have kids). That period in a child's life, though, is a short one, and most folks don't remember their own experience of the phenomenon (or much of anything else from that age, either) very well. (I'd bet that most of the people who use this site read relatively fluently before school age. Heck, most of us are so literate that we often mistake these here squiggles for "real" language when it is, at best, a rough guide for reconstructing what is a much more nuanced (and ephemeral) means of communicating.) "hard to imagine" and "hard to see if you're paying attention" are not interchangeable statements.