Logistically Speaking

Like with every other parent in the world, my kids often do things that surprise me. It's often hard for me to remember that they learn more and more everyday and I'm often surprised at the amount of knowledge they have. Today though I was surprised with not what they know, but how they figure things out. Deductive reasoning at its prime. While driving by the river today Gabrielle asked how a buoy floats. Since I am no engineer and Robert is, I happily deferred the question to Robert who's answer was "the same way a boat does." Wow, that was helpful cause every four year old knows how a boat floats. Well then Gabrielle says "Is it because of it's hump?" We were confused. Then she elaborated. Boats have a hump or hill on the bottom, and she wanted to know if that was how it floats. When we answered that it was, then she said "well then the buoy must have a little hump on it too." By this time I was in shock. My four year old had amazingly enough related the form of the boat to it's function, and then she had deduced the form of the buoy based on it's function. Who does that???? I'm a grown woman and truth be told, I've never thought about how the shape of the bottom of a boat helps it float. Well in the end she'd pretty much answered her own question with an answer that made more sense then her dad's. As for me, well I'm just in shock. And know I know how a boat floats.

Not to be outdone, Leila later showed that she too has great deductive reasoning abilities. She had been wanting a snack, and kept asking us for one even though we kept saying 'no.' Finally she asked if she could go wash her hands. I said "sure, of course you can." After all, I'm all for good hygiene. Well she proceeded to the bathroom where she washed her hands, dried them off, turned off the light to the bathroom, closed the door and made her way to the table where she got up in her seat and said once more "snack please." What???? Well we gathered that her thinking was "we always make her go wash her hands when it's time to eat, so if she washes her hands then it will be time to eat." There's logic for ya.