So funny!

This has absolutely nothing to do with your anecdote, aquinas, except ... by association: one day several years ago, I comment that DC#1 (playing horsey) is trotting around the house. I get back, "no, I'm cantering", followed by a narrated demonstration of the exact sequences of steps that constitute trotting, cantering, galloping, etc.

No one in our family rides, nor have the kids been on horseback even at a zoo more than two or three times in their lives.

He cracks me up. He's such a good-natured boy, even when he's under the weather.

It's amazing how kids will gravitate to topics they enjoy. Has the passion for horses persisted? I definitely lack the equestrian nuances of your #1 and would be left flat-footed, making pathetic whinnying noises if asked to make a similar demo.

One more piggyback--I promise this will be my last today!

We see a similar sort of love of detail with DS. He doesn't let a lack of actual information stop him. He really enjoys making up detailed pseudo-information and relating it with an official air. (trolling, maybe? ) He recently convinced a museum docent that an inflatable model of a jellyfish was actually an obscure type of (non-existent) macrophage ("aminapestis", I think inspired by the bacteria behind the plague, yersinia pestis.)

You know, what's funny is that #1 really didn't have a huge horse fascination (although a favorite cousin does). Stray bits of information just stick. Though oddly, instructions to clean one's room or put away laundry don't...

My PG sib used to troll us constantly. Anyone heard of the early keyboard instrument called a clavicle? (Curiously, this only works during that small window when your sibs know that there were early keyboard instruments called claviers, but do not yet know the names of the major bones of the human body.)

And would your DC enjoy plush pathogens, do you think?

http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/blackdeath.html

Wow!! I suddenly feel like I've been living under a rock! DS would LOVE those!!! Thanks aeh! How did you discover them?

Gosh, they have tetanus, too. If they have rabies, we're made.

Annnnd, they do. Well, there's part of his Christmas shopping taken care of.

Aren't they fabulous? (I want to say adorable, but somehow that seems wrong...) I think I first saw them at the Museum of Science in Boston.

Well, I think you can get away with calling the hematology (squee!!!) and reproductive cells adorable. Nobody will hate on a plush ovum the way they might a life threatening disease. I showed DS a few and his favourites were the neutrophil and plasma cells, though he did appreciate the plague and, curiously, e-coli.

For a laugh, let's just imagine the ways the line, "he did appreciate the plague" could be misconstrued. I love this forum.

It's election season here in the North, and DS11 had to produce his platform as Prime Minister. I expected the 'invest in lots of S&T to address environmental issues', was pleasantly surprised by his plea for open immigration, and lost it when I got to something to the effect of "every kid should be allowed to learn at the speed and depth best suited to them".

I am actively lobbying this teacher for harder math. There is no way she's not going to think I put him up to this.

DS told me his science teacher has a "stuffed herpes" toy and will occasionally say OKAY, PASS THE HERPES. He thinks this is hilarious but it did also cause him to ask a bunch of somewhat uncomfortable questions.

I had no idea what he was talking about, until this post.