Noah, much more than Judah, loves categories and distinctions. I caught a glimpse of this last year when he pronounced in a musing tone - Mommy, mommy...your penis is a vagina...but...our butts are the same!
It was a revelation to him.
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| Logical Larry in an outfit that defies logic |
A delightful categorization of unmentionable parts - the stuff we hide behind undies and the distinction between genders. What is different? What is the same? I considered blowing his mind right then and there by telling him that males and females actually have the same kind of genital tissue, but at the fetus stage, various hormones cause the tissue to develop into a vagina or penis...but women technically have "under-developed" penises and some people are hermaphrodites.
But then I remembered he was 3...so I'll save it.
Last week, Noah revealed more of his love of logic in the car, this time on the topic of ciphers. He randomly asked me - Mommy, what is A + B?
This is a guy who has been doing simple arithmetic with numbers for over a year now so I know he was trying to extend that logic to a new category.
I answered..."AB"? "A, B"? Not wanting to guess the obvious punchline - C, so as not to steal his thunder.
He answered reliably - No, it's 'C', Mommy!
Oh! I said, pretending to be amused and surprised.
Yeah, he said, because A = 1 and B = 2 and C = 3.
Okay, I thought, he has a mind for ciphers. Which is amusing because never in his life did we ever talk about or play any games relating to ciphers.
And then, much to my further amusement, he went on - Mommy, what is C + D?
I thought, hmmm...I wonder if he's going to say the cop out answer - E? Would he just be lazily sequential instead of doing the hard work of logical consistency?
I don't know, Noah, I said, waiting for him to answer.
He paused for a good long minute and mumbled and finger counted and finally shouted out - G!
Why yes, my boy! My logical, cipher-loving, math-pondering boy!
And just to show me how he did it, he explained - Because C = 3 and D = 4 and 3+4 = 7 and G = 7!
And I thought, yes, my son. MY son. I have always loved logic and found the application of it to be wonderfully cleansing, something akin to that clean squeaky feeling you get when the dentist blasts each tooth with a water pick and scrapes all the plaque off your gums.
And then today, driving in the car, Noah's logical mind made me want to stick a screwdriver in my eye. He kept asking me, again and again, to explain the strange phenomenon he witnessed over the weekend.
We had attended a kid's musical of Willy Wonka and Noah was perplexed by the girl in the violet fat suit who was blown up with an air pump. She was not the same girl who played the "normal" Violet Beauregard, as the costume change was too quick.
Again and again, Noah pondered how she got so big, so round, and slightly taller in one second...on and on his questioning went for what seemed like an eternity to me.
Logic, a double-edged sword.
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