My Grandkids

My grandson

I was in the car, and I had just explained to my grandson that there are lots of kinds of owies, some I couldn’t explain to him until he was older (I was thinking about cancer or amputations.).

He asked, “How many kinds are there?” I remembered when I was a kid, I asked my mom how many stars there were in the sky. “One million, two hundred fifty thousand and sixteen,” she quickly responded. I like to think I instantly knew it was a joke. I was about 10 years old at the time.

So, I told him, “Four thousand, two hundred and forty six.” He responded, “Are you joking?” I was flabbergasted.

Speaking of flabbergasted, I have a fine 19^th century vocabulary I seem to be passing on to him. I said, “Gosh darn the blankety heck,” which he then repeated several times, asking me what it meant.

Earlier in the week, we were making a recipe together. I looked at it, thinking the vegetables were breaking down because there was so much water in the pot. “We just poured a cup of water in,” my grandson said accurately, demonstrating the relative quality of memory at age 4 versus age 70.

One of his aunts says he really grooved to the Beatles’ Nowhere Man.

Somewhat out of nowhere, he asked for duck. We got some Peking duck from the nearby Chinese restaurant. Despite my best efforts (and those of his mom), he barely touched it. Not even the skin!

Comments

[Robert E. Malchman]

Did he request "duck" as food or as an animal? If he wanted a pet duck, I can understand why he might not have appreciated the version in edible form.

I'm not surprised he liked "Nowhere Man." Really, all of Yellow Submarine is highly kid-friendly. I remember my parents taking me to see it when it came out (I was five, maybe?), and I liked it, but was badly scared by the Blue Meanies.

Little ones have a tremendous capacity for insight and repetition. Ask him questions like, "Where does the sun go at night?" or "What are stars made of?" When my son was little, he thought that when I went to court, I'd have a sword fight with opposing counsel. He says he has no idea now why he thought that (it's not like I have a sword or carry one around with me!).

[Lee Giguere]

My 9-year-old grandson is oddly precocious. A few months ago he asked me if I knew anything about white holes. He'd seen something about them on YouTube. I was able to print for him an article from an astronomy Web site for kids. (White holes are time-reversed black holes, but only in theory. They haven't been observed. Does that clear thingss up?) Anyway, he really likes math. For example a couple of months ago he was asking about cubes and we had a nice discussion. He recently took up chess, but he also really likes basketball. Go figure.

[Robert E. Malchman]

I played chess and baseball in my youth, so your grandson's interests don't strike me as odd at all!