He's Smart and Funny, Too!

Monday, Noah’s school had a teachers’ workday, so he visited with us. As we drove into MacDonald’s (grammies get to take their grandchildren to Mickey Dee’s whenever said grandchild requests regardless of the lack in nutritional value), he read the sign—91 million served. I said, “That’s 91 billion” which led to a discussion of large numbers. I explained that one million has six zeroes, one billion has nine zeroes, and one trillion has 12 zeroes. “What comes after trillions?” he asked. I went as far as I could, then said, “I don’t know of anything you have to count that goes beyond quintillion unless you were asked to count the separate grains of sand on the beach.” (I didn’t mention the national debt.) We discussed it a bit further when he said, “Do you know what we are doing?” “No, what are we doing?” I replied. He said, “We are hypothesizing.” He is 7 years old, a second grader, and is hypothesizing! When I was in the second grade, I was trying to color inside the lines with the appropriate colors.

We went to the library and he picked out two books in the Magic Tree House series. He read one about DaVinci previously and now knows more about the artist than I do.

After lunch he asked if I would play War (the card game) with him. Truthfully, War is not my favorite game so I decided to teach him to play Rummy. We played one hand and I explained the rules. Prior to the next hand, he said, “Can I play by myself this time? I think I get it.” With only a little help with strategy from Mr. Fixit, he beat me! He was delighted. (We need to have a little discussion about being a gracious winner though. He wanted to take the score sheet home to show his dad.) He even kept score with only a little help with “carrying” in addition. After all, he is only in second grade.

When checking out the toy that was in his Happy Meal, I observed that it was “lame.” He asked me what “lame” meant. I explained that it meant this new toy wasn’t as good as last week’s talking toy; the new one only vibrates. He said, “Can I ask you a question that might make you mad?” “Sure,” I said courageously, “Go ahead.” He said with a wicked little smile, “If I said you are a “lame” card player, would that be right?”

We’ll just see who’s a lame card player. The next time he’s here, I’m going to teach him how to play Canasta. I should be able to beat him at that one; his hand is too small to hold all those cards!