Miscellania from the parenting file.
Number Two offfspring, age 5.75, has a new plastic bracelet from a kiddie fun house. It has the word "funky" on it.
She's talking about it at dinner. A teachable moment arises.
She is asked, "what other word is in 'funky'?" The asker expects, hopes, she answers, "fun." Of course.
She pauses, wrinkles her nose and says, "funk."
Number One offspring, age 9.25, is eating a tangerine today after school. He likes tangerines. A lot. 
He asks, "Daddy, how many kinds of tangerines are there?"
I reply quickly and authoritatively: "Twelve."
It works.
Plus, I could even be right. Sunkist here identifies seven tangerine types from just the Western growing areas.
You probably knew that "mandarins" and "tangelos" were classes of tangerines, along with "tangerines."
And that there are still more classes of tangerines and additional types within classes, all breezily acknowledged but unspecified in the above Sunkist link.
Number One offspring asks lots of questions like this.
I always say, "We'll Google That Up."
Twelve still sounds good to me, but now I've got half a leg upon which to stand.
Recently, he also wanted to know, "how many bones are in the human body?"
Here ya go, kid: 206, down from 350 as an infant.
Asking questions like that, he'll go far. 
I have already come up with a great idea for his science fair project this year: how cheese is made.
I see diagrams and text on posterboard, plus a basic home recipe; notations on how well we executed; and finally...samples.
TECHNORATI TAGS: PARENTING, FUNK, TANGERINES, BONES, CHEESE
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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 15, 2005 09:03 PM