Ah! There's the rub!
The anatomy stiff (too funny a typo to correct) isn't really academic, because the way DS is approaching it isn't. There is a real difference of quality between an anthropology student learning compairative anatomy, and my son putting together a mental model of motion and body movement. He's just doing regular 3 yr old dig with the toy backhoe stuff, only he desires to do it with more complex systems, and with more abstract ways of approaching the info (a chart rather than an articulated toy). He percieves that bodies must contain mechanical motion-producing parts, and wants to generalize beyond the typical range of a 3yr old's motion study. He only cares what an ulna is called because he wants to be able to communicate with me about it right now, not because he sees a long-term benefit of knowing about ulnas tied to some future anthropological research. Otherwise he'd want to spell it.
And if his relative (male, incidentally) asked him what that bone was called, he'd say he didn't know, just like he did when asked if he knew what an sparrow was. He doesn't want to demonstrate knowing, he wants to hear what the relative is going to say to explain what an sparrow is. He even got mad at me for flashing his hand and telling that he really did know. If his interest were academic, he'd want to demonstrate knowing as well as wanting to learn more/hear a new perspective.
It's totally not precocious, it's just deeper and clearer interest in age-normal preoccupations. The more I remind myself of that the more I manage to give the answers he was looking for, and not bore him with side-tracks... and the more he keeps asking untill he breaks my head... but I kinda like that
I'm enjoying this train of thought becasue it really does help me understand my kid better, y'know. Keep makin' me think folks! This kicks a$$,
