My son Munchkin’s new reading material is entitled ‘Science and Technology’. His super-duper brain is growing a little fast for me. I try and push Dr Seuss’s Go Dog Go! (a syntactical delight, if ever there was one) on him, and all I get is, “Can I have a book about biology please?”
I suggest that we read another chapter of Peter Pan, but it’s just not grabbing him. He ditched Thomas the Tank Engine about two years ago, claiming it was babyish (he was 3 at the time). He still scoffs at the premise of Toy Story (“The toys come to life, mom. That’s just stupid.”)
Rather, he wants to know about how a skyscraper is constructed, and how electricity works. And since I still don’t understand how electricity works myself, perhaps it’s for the best.
Still, being of the dippy, foggy, creative variety, it’s hard for me to concentrate on something that doesn’t have plot or character arc or, if it has to be non-fiction, salacious celebrity gossip. Otherwise, my mind is drifting, my mouth yawning, and I can’t retain the information. I must have read his book about Sharks and Whales 65 times and still forget that a whale shark, although weighing something like 20 tons, is a shark, not a whale.
Now that our kiddos have started kindergarten and the universe has cracked open its door to them, some of us parents are starting to struggle with answers to the questions, and are more than astounded by the observations. I know I’m not the only one.
“Bur how many layers are there until you get to the Earth’s core?”
“Tell me what the epiglottis is for again?”
“It’s not the sun that’s moving, mommy, it’s Earth.”
I stand corrected. And in awe. And tickled pink. One of his chums said to him today: “What does it feel like to be you?”
Be prepared, world. There’s a host of curious and brilliant minds coming up through the ranks.