Raising a..... Calvin

Obviously, from the theme of this blog, I am a big fan of Calvin. One of the things that I always loved about the character was watching his imagination in action. He was highly intelligent, but when he combined that intelligence with his imagination... watch out! People were in for a wild ride. More and more do I realize I am raising a little Calvin of my own.

Allow me to explain as over the weekend I seemed to find all kinds of Calvin behavior. Let me give a few examples of things that just baffled me...

Each night before bedtime, we read stories together. Lately, he has discovered a series of books that are like little kid encyclopedias. They offer tons of information on a number of subjects. Each time he goes to the library, he picks 3 and we read them. Friday night.. it was Pyramids. We were learning all about their construction, mummies and ancient egypt. We came to a page about the pictures drawn upon the walls, and.. figuring he needed an easier definition, I began to improvise..

"These are drawings that the people would put on the walls.." He interrupted me.. "Dad.. THEY ARE CALLED HIEROGLYPHICS" and then comes the big eye roll.

All I could do is stare at him, mouth dropped down to my knee. Where in the world did he learn THAT? And it's not like he just learned a random word.. he knew the context, and what he was looking at.. What are they teaching these kids in Pre-K?!

My amazement continued on Saturday when while cooking our morning pancakes, he piped up.. "Dad, what is 5 plus 2?" I decided to be "Teacher of the Year" and turn it back on him. "what do YOU think 5 plus 2 make?" He thought for a second and answered "Seven!" I was impressed, but then decided to take it a step further.. "Ok, hot shot," I said, "What is 7 + 7?" He thought for a second and then blurted out, very matter of factly, "14"! Again, there I am pulling my jaw off the counter, trying not to let in fall on the pancake griddle, causing very painful burns. The kid is in pre-school! I can barely add 7 and 7 and I have a degree. The kid is smart, what can I say..

But then, while cleaning off my desk, I found one of his MANY drawings that he gave me as a present several months ago.. It brought the world of Calvin crashing in.. The intelligence, mixed with creativity, creating disastrous results.. The picture looked simple.. a mountain scene with something odd near one of the mountains. When he gave it to me, with the look of proud satisfaction on his face, I said "Great job,buddy, what is the picture of?" And then came the answer (it begins with the eye roll) "Daaaaad, can't you tell? It's an airplane, crashing into the mountains! Want to know why it crashed? The airplane companies were trying to save money and they figured the best way to do that was to get rid of pilot jobs, so the pilots all had to fly longer and longer routes. This one had a long trip and just got too tired, fell asleep and the plane crashed into the mountain. Hopefully help will come before the passengers get too hungry.." Seeing my obvious look of disbelief that he had actually thought all this out, he rolled his eyes again and then pulled a line out that I am constantly using on him: "It's just how the world works, Dad.. It's just how the world works," he said as he walked away, shaking his head.

Oh boy.. My dream has come true... I have my own little Calvin...


Oh, also over the weekend, he proudly came up with his own little "amazement line". He sees something that amazes him and yells "Holy Shrimp!!". Yup, he turns heads in the stores!