Teancom, the Biologist

He was sitting there, playing in the dirt.  For maybe half an hour.  It was obvious that he wasn't making dirt piles.  In fact, I'm not sure it can be called PLAYING at all.  He was sitting in the dirt, observing.  Sometimes he'd reach down and pluck a piece of grass, or find something else fascinating.  I could tell he was focused on the things he was finding.  I smiled as I thought about my budding biologist.

Teancom isn't the most active child there is.  Some days he moves slightly more than a rock does.  I remember this on the days when he only eats a few Saltine crackers, and then I feel a little better about my mothering skills.  He doesn't need a ton of calories brought in if he's not expending much energy.

Teancom also likes to watch movies.  If I let him, he would watch movies all day.  I know this because one day I decided to let him, as an experiment.  He watched TV from 8:30 a.m., when the older kids left for school, until 4:00 p.m., when they got back.  I think he might have turned it off for half an hour to eat some Saltines.  On normal days, when I tell him to turn off the TV, he still just lays there, watching nothing.  He holds his blanket and sucks his fingers.  Sometimes for hours.

So I devise play dates and activities so that he won't just lay there.

But there are some huge pros to his less active behavior: 
1 - He doesn't make messes.  At all.  Ever.
2 - He's generally easily entertained.  Just give him a blanket and floor space, and he's good.

And then come the real pros.  The valuable long-term ones.

He's very observant.  It's a gift he has.  I've learned to not question what he tells me.  If he says he saw a snake, it was a snake.  If he says that the movie has a whale shark in it, then it does.  If he says, "That's a female cardinal," and then gives me the reasons why, then it's actually a female cardinal.

He actually loves watching birds and knows the names of every local bird that I know the name of.  I'm a poor teacher for bird watching.  But what gets me is that he doesn't forget.  He'll know not only the names, but how many there are, and their positions.  He'll spot birds that I didn't notice.  It's neat to see how excited he gets by watching nature.

I often talk to Rob about this (in fact, I'm sure I've mentioned it on this blog before), because it's fascinating to see how Tank's mind works, to see what kind of information he holds onto.  One of his favorite movie series is Planet Earth, or "Cave-es" as he calls it.  He'll watch them and say, for example, "Mom, what is that thing again?  ...  Oh, yeah.  It's a vampire octopus."  Sure enough.  Rob will say, "He reminds me of me."  Really?  I mean, I was a "smart kid," too, scientific-minded, but I don't remember enjoying nature shows as a 4-year-old.

So when we went to Miciah's soccer game the other day, it didn't surprise me at all when he sat quietly in the dirt, observing.  He walked back towards me, and there was my hero shot.  I saw him winning science fairs in junior high.  I saw him eventually earning a PhD, like his father.  And I saw myself, 50 years old, watching from the stands as the Dean hands him his diploma, and thinking back on this moment with the dirt.  I would say, then, "I knew from the beginning that he was going to be a Biologist.  He's just always had this gift."

He sat on my lap and I said, "Did you have fun in the dirt?"
"Yeah."
"Was something in the dirt?"
"Yeah.  Ants."
Instantly I thought of Henry David Thoreau.  Not only was my child going to one day be a Biologist, he had the makings of a Thoreau!  I probed further.  "What were you doing with the ants?"
"I tore their butts off."  He did the actions, his fingers pinching and pulling.
I paused.  "Why?"
"I wanted them to die.  So I tore off their butts.  And then their legs wiggled like this."
I smiled at the imagery.  "Oh."

My dreamy images deflated.  I wasn't holding a mini-Thoreau in my lap, I was holding a normal 4-year-old boy.  And that's just as it should be.