Boys and girls

"How does a mommy make a boy?"

This was asked of Abigail's father this morning as they were driving to school. He was impressed with the question; but he didn't, apparently, bother to respond (boy, he sure missed a chance!).

It is easy to understand where this comes from. Abigail lives in what I like to refer to as "Estrogen land". She is the middle child of three, all girls. Her mother is female, obviously. For various reasons, we have always had female pets (many will remember Nike, then Zoe, now Gracie -- all three female labradors) and all the rats have been girls.

Beginning with Emily, all the childcare people have been female; two years ago we started hosting au pairs in our house to not only benefit from a cultural exchange but to provide much needed help in dealing with all the crazy scheduling and they have all been female.

Eric is the only male in the confines of our residence. I suspect that he suffers for it, but he does so with little comment, positive or negative.

In the last week alone my friend Amélie came to visit AND our former au pair, Ilona is also visiting. Talk about estrogen land!

So, Abigail is right to wonder... how does one manage to get a boy? From her perspective the odds must appear pretty slim.

Cells

So we are driving home and we are listening to They Might be Giants, 'Science is Real', and this song comes on:

Life is made out of cells
Cells make copies of themselves (copies of themselves)
And they make copies of themselves (and they make copies of themselves)
And they make copies of themselves

"MOMMY," yells Abigail (we like to rock out to these songs a bit... if you know They Might Be Giants, you would understand, but not to worry, I don't do any harm to my children's ears...). "MOMMY," she yells again, and I turn down the music, slightly...

Different cells have different jobs
But they all have one thing in common
Inside of every cell is a twisted ladder
A recipe for life called DNA
The directions are written out in the ladder's rungs
Where they can be found
In every cell of everything that lives

"Is this song real? Does that really happen?"

A cell knows what it has to do
To grow into some moss or a shrew
Algae or a kangaroo
Bug or a sunflower
Dwight David Eisenhower
A frog, a fish or you
Cells are small, too small to see
But together they can make a tree

"Yes," I answered, "this song is real and this is all true."

Within the cell there's a tiny spiral staircase
That tells the cell just how it's going to grow
The instructions are spelled out in letters
One on every step
In a language that the cell knows how to read

That was all she said. She listened to the rest of the song.

Inside the cell is a tiny double helix
Another fancy word for DNA
Which could also be a spiral staircase
Which could also be a twisted ladder
Which could also be a spring

Which could also be a spiral staircase
Which could also be a twisted ladder
Or a crazy looking spring*

And I wonder... what the five year-old mind is doing with THIS information.

(Shameless advertisement: If you aren't familiar with They Might Be Giants, I highly suggest you become so...)

*Copyright, They Might Be Giants, 2009.

This will knock your socks off

Just when you think a child is not paying attention, or is too wrapped up in watching mindless TV, you realize that her mind is always working. No, not just thinking about the next snack she wants to eat, not thinking about Tom and Jerry... really thinking. Really processing what she knows, what she doesn't know, and what she needs to ask about to better understand her world.

Yesterday was a day where Abigail showed us her ability to really think. She asked, 'Can the world spin in the other direction?'

Whoa. I can't even grasp where this might have come from. But it is pretty deep, and I will leave it at that.

Do you get buried with your glasses?

Yes, the questions about death continue to come. They seem to rest dormant in Abigail's head. Then, all of a sudden, they reappear in moments of high emotion.

We were having fun recently, tickling and telling jokes. Abigail was laughing hysterically, and really enjoying the physical high one gets from being tickled. She said to me, as she often does, 'I love you more than anything.' Then she quickly added, as she is wont to do since seeing the decomposed mouse, 'I don't want you to die.'

But as she was saying it this time, she was looking at my face, with my standard pair of glasses and then she queried, 'Do you get buried with your glasses?' Then she quickly scanned my body, seeing rings and things, and asked about jewelry and such. I mentioned to her that my jewelry would belong to her and her sisters when I died; that I would make sure they each got some of the different pieces I have, some of which have been handed down to me by both sides of their family. That was intriguing for her. But she reiterated when I told her I would not be buried with my glasses that she didn't want me to die (jewelry inheritance notwithstanding apparently!).

Seasons in the sun

So again, we are walking (this is what I love about living in the center of a city... lots of walking, using the bike... forgetting the car...). We are walking home from school, from the metro which is about a 10 minute walk from our house. Along the boulevards that circle the city, are large trees. Right now, they are carrying lights from the advent season (see previous post!) but are not lit up.
Abigail looks around as she walks. She thinks. And, of course, she asks many questions.

This time it was, 'How will they get the leaves back on the trees?' So this question is of that 'cute and cuddly' five year-old kind. The innocence of naivete, the questioning of how this season thing works. Abigail remembers the leaves, and she particularly remembers them falling and leaving piles all around the city, including our backyard. And they are gone... and... they will come back... and she knows this.

It is the process that is unclear, but as she fills in the blanks of seasonal renewal, I am sure many other blanks are being filled in and we just don't know it.

Isn't cognition cool?

Why are the Christmas lights still up?

In Toulouse, they hang lovely lights all over town. These lights change between neighborhoods, and one can see a definite style as well as well-thought out design in all of them.

The Christmas lights really, well, light up the town during the season. In Europe the Winters can be soooo dark... and we aren't even that far North compared to many countries! So these lights are a blessing.

So today, as we walked Abigail's big sister to her chorale class, Abigail said, 'Why are the Christmas lights still up?'

Christmas is over. You can't mistake it. Our tree is gone. And Abigail has used all her presents at least once. Her favorites are emerging (a set of Hello Kitty stamps from a former babysitter is the most precious right now). She has few chocolates left from her stocking. So... indeed, why are the lights up? Time to move on, folks!

This would have just left me ruminating on the rapidity of the season if it wasn't only about 20 minutes later when she and I were on our own she queried another, 'Why did they leave that broccoli bush lying on the street?' This was in reference to someone's tossed Christmas tree which didn't resemble a Christmas tree much anymore, besides being quite small it had few needles... ah, Abigail.

It is another French (or perhaps just Toulousain?) tradition: tossing your Christmas trees onto the sidewalk after the holidays are done. That's what that broccoli bush was doing there.

2011 -- The year of the metaphor?

Well, it was just before 2011 started, that Abigail demonstrated a new ability in addition to her amazing question-posing capacity.

The metaphor.

I was driving Abigail and her sister to school. I do not often have this privilege because my work often requires me to start quite early and so taking them to school often falls to their father. But when he, the traveling scientist, is not in town, it falls to me or our child-care person to do it. On this particular day, I had chosen the car, even though I prefer the metro (28 years living in California pretty much destroyed any love affair I could have with cars).

"Mommy," began Abigail, "The car is like, like, a BIG suitcase. You see? We pack it full of things, we pack it with us, and then we take it to where we are going. It's just a big suitcase."

Yes indeed, Abigail. And what does a five-year old know about suitcases? Well... a lot. In 2010 Abigail visited Paris three times, Iceland, and the United States. This in addition to regular trips to our country house in the Ariege. And this was a relatively quiet year for travel for her and the rest of us. So Abigail knows suitcases.

And, Abigail sees clearly how the car resembles a suitcase.

More to come, dear follower(s). More questions, more metaphors, and perhaps even more we hadn't even thought about awaits us in 2011 with Abigail.

Stay tuned.