Why? and Bath Math

A couple neat things happened in the last few days.

First, Audrey went full-bore into the "WHY?" stage. She's suddenly asking about everything. She asked me why the sky is blue. She asks why we're wearing what clothes we're wearing. She asked Hosie why she's a girl. She asked why a tree is called a tree. So we're entering that time where you have to bend your mind around all these inquisitions. Sometimes, we're lying in bed at night, and I think she's asleep, when suddenly, I'll hear this little tentative whisper: "Daddy?" I whisper back: "What, honey?" "Why do you always call me sweetie pie?"

The second thing arose out of a question that Audrey asked Hosanna earlier today. They were all taking a bath together (hair washing day!), when Audrey said "What does even mean?" So Hosanna started explaining that "even" has two meanings: even vs. uneven, and even vs. odd. Hosanna made an example using a bunch of farm animals, showing that four animals could be split into an even number of groups of two.

So then, later, Aria was downstairs playing with some other toys, when she stumbled upon the concept of division. She came into the kitchen and said: "Mommy, I figured out that 12 is 4, 4, and 4!" So then Hosanna got out some Legos and showed her how 12 could be divided into three groups of four, four groups of three, two groups of six, etc. And that, my friends, is home school. Aria learned math in the bath. Learning happens at the kid's pace, in unexpected places, in ways that will constantly amaze you.

(By the way, Aria's reading this over my shoulder as I type it. Yeah. The kid can read.)