Well I just put the girls to bed. LITTLE A fell asleep pretty quickly, but Big A was full of questions. She likes to talk, and apparently, think a lot before she goes to sleep. Tonight she asked me what we are before we are "eggs". I told her, again how actually humans start out when an "egg" and a sperm meet and form a single cell of an embryo, which splits into two cells, then each cell splits in two, etc. until there are a big ball of cells, and that is an embryo. The cells keep multiplying until they form a human body. Then she asked what kind of cells bones are made of-- so I told her they are made of cell called osteophytes. Then she asked where osteophytes come from-- so I told her that as the embryo forms, some cells develop or differentiate into bone cells, some cells develop into skin cells, some cells develop into brain cells, etc. Then she asked how each cell decides what type of cell it should differentiate into! So I tried to explain DNA and genes and chemical signals to a 4 year old! Not an easy task... Then she went on to ask what cells look like and what color cells are-- so I explained that different cell types have different shape. I said that tomorrow we would get the microscope, and I would scrape off some of my skin cells so that she could look at them. Then she asked how I would scrape them-- I said with blade. Then she asked will they die?-- yes, but I explained as each cell dies new ones are being formed. Then she asked why cells die and how do they know when to die... etc., etc.
Her next subject was clouds. She said she knows how clouds are formed, but where does the air and the water come from? I explained that air and water are always there, that the air is always in the atmosphere, and water just changes forms--sometimes a liquid on Earth, sometimes it evaporates into a vapor in the air, and sometimes it freezes into ice. The she asked me what clouds feel like---I said that you can't really touch them, but they feel sort of wet. I told her how I have been so high on a mountain that I was actually in the clouds-- and it felt sort of misty. Then I told her that it was time to go to sleep, so I was going to leave the room. Really, I was tired of thinking so much and, frankly, was a little afraid that she may start asking questions that I could not answer (physics and chemistry are not my best subjects).
That is a typical night with Big A. I often find myself looking up subjects, long forgotten, on the Internet to find an answer to her questions. It is pretty bad when a 4 year old can make you feel stupid.
No comments:
Post a Comment