An Elephant

Our first real inkling of J's amazing-ness was when he remembered what he got in his Easter basket the previous year, and he had just turned 2.

Today, he amazed me again.

He had made a little craft, the kind with plastic beads that you set on a peg board, then use the iron to melt the beads together on one side. He was admiring his work, saying how he liked that it was the same front and back, and even if you flipped it side to side. I asked him, "Do you know what an axis of symmetry is?"

"No," he replied.

I gave a brief explanation.

"So this smiley face has one axis of symmetry, right here," and he karate chopped his crafty creation right down the middle.

"Yup! Very good!" We had talked about axes of symmetry extensively when he was 3. He was always very good at it, and I was happy that he'd picked it up again.

Moments later, I mentioned that I'd taught him about symmetry before. He recalled, "yeah, I remember you cut out a man, and an airplane, out of paper and I folded them along their axis of symmetry. And then you tried to trick me by cutting out a cow spot, and it had no axis of symmetry."

Wow. He is exactly right! That was three years ago, give or take a month or so. Half of his lifetime.