I had a reality check about how much unconscious teaching and experimenting I do at the park yesterday when DS2.7 was playing trucks in the sandbox with a nice little 4 yo boy.

Boy: Look! The sand sticks together!
DS: Yes, that's because of surface tension.

Later, boy tests driving DS' truck down a slide:

Boy: The truck fell! Look! The truck fell!
DS: Gravity pulled it to the ground!
Me (to the boy): Try sliding it down on its wheels, then on its side, and compare the truck's speed in both situations. Which do you think will be faster?
Boy (after testing): Wheels make it travel faster, neat!
Me: Why do you think that is?
Boy: I don't know.
DS: The wheels roll, so there's less friction on the wheels.

When your seven year old wants to be like "Albert" (Einstein) or "Leo" (Leonardo DaVinci) and create, invent or discover something when he grows up, all while also writing poems like "Shel" (Silverstein.)

When your 14yo happily bounces in her computer chair... having made the delightful discovery that the Gallup website is "like news and statistics all rolled into one, Mom!" Catnip to go with the cat-eared hat that she's sporting this afternoon, in fact.

... when EVERY subject teacher your child has ever had in secondary schooling career has, at more than one point, GUSHED about how much natural aptitude she possesses for the field/discipline.

"Oh, I hope that she goes into ______. She has such a natural feel for the subject. She seems to really have a gift with it. Please let me know if you EVER want a letter of recommendation for anything-- I'd write you a glowing one!"


I mean, I get that teachers may say this sort of thing to a lot of students. I'm just thinking that a surprising number of my DD's teachers think that their field... is HER "thing" too. Even when it most decidedly is NOT.

So her math teachers think she is "mathy" and her English teachers think she's a literature major in the making, and the science teachers think she is a future researcher (in whatever subdiscipline they teach), and the foreign language teacher thinks she's a linguist, etc. etc.

She wows them ALL-- they kind of experience cognitive dissonance when they get hints that she's that singular at other things, too. Like her beloved English teacher, who was clearly blown away to realize that as a 13yo junior, she was acing AP Physics as well as AP Lit.

He might like this song and this song, too!

you share old 80's kids cartoon series' with your 5 and 7 year old and they spend the majority of the time ripping holes through the plot line. (Robotech is the series my husband was showing them - he was so so excited to share it with them too.)

When your first grader spends the first week of summer break staying up til all hours reading an entire book every night. This weekend it was Mouse and the Motorcycle and then the second Nick and Tesla. And for hours during the day she read a great graphic novel and the drama books/monologues I got for the drama club we're starting. What summer brain drain? We have three delicious months off!

you tell your 4 year old to eat 10 more bites before she can leave the table and after 2, she starts to get up. When questioned she responds with "You didn't say HOW to count to 10, so I went 5-10".

Now "1, 10" would have been really impressive.

Your 5 year old picks three books to take to a family lunch in case he doesn't want to play with his cousins and chooses his Graphic Novel of Macbeth, a book on Ancient Egypt and a book on Pirate Ships. These join the new Astronomy book you bought for husband for Father's Day and the Life of Fred book in his bag.