Elijah: (running around the living room, arms waving) “I’m oxygen and I’m looking for hydrogen”
Me: “I can be hydrogen.”
E: “You’ll have to do. Wait, I need two hydrogens…you see, water is H-2-O, not H-O”
M: “We can wait for William (daddy)”
E: “No. I’ve got it. You are twice as big as me, so you count for two hydrogens and I’m half your size, so I am still one oxygen. Now stand with your arms like handles and I’ll latch on to make us into water.”
Then we danced around the living room being a water molecule for a bit. While this was going on I had absolutely no idea where he learned that water was 2 hydrogen atoms bonded to 1 oxygen atom, but the fact remains that he knew it!
Only later did I find out that it was on an episode of Crashbox (HBO Family program) a couple weeks ago and they mentioned chemistry. He found an old chemistry textbook a couple days ago on the the bookshelf and apparently taught himself a little chemistry late one night (or should I say early one morning!).
He also informed me that salt was too long for him to remember, but it sure looks neat in the drawings!
And ‘they’ say children can’t learn things or figure them out for themselves. I am quite sure that when I was his age and in Kindergarten, we were ‘learning’ our alphabet (unless, like me, we knew it already), coloring in the lines (are you serious?) and making reindeer with popsicle sticks (or was that 3rd grade?). I doubt anyone would have thought we might like to know what makes water or to hand us a college level chemistry book to find out on our own.
Ah. Thank you Crashbox/HBO. Thank you bookshelf and thank you required college class!
