Shorties

"Is this what one of these looks like?" said the Boy Wonder. "In real life?"

"Yes it is," I replied. "In real life a Short-eared Owl is much smaller, of course - only about this big [holding my hands about a foot apart] - but I think they've done a very good job with this model."

"Not a very good job," said the Boy, peering closely at the bricks. "These don't look much like feathers."

Four years old, and already an art critic.

I gently pointed out the difficulty of making hard-edged building blocks look like soft feathers, but I don't think he was overly impressed. But then:

"Why does its nose look like that?"

"Oh," I said, "that's not its nose - that's the owl's sharp beak. It uses that for killing and eating little mice and things that it catches."

Finally, some interesting information! The Boy was satisfied, and we were able to move on. Maybe one day I'll be able to take him to see some Short-eared Owls "in real life" - but only once he's tall enough to see over the walls at the owl field, obviously.

When we arrived back home, B asked to be shown how the burglar alarm worked. What he really wanted, it transpired, was for one of us to trip it so that the alarm went off, but once we'd explained, no more than two or three times, that this would upset our neighbours and therefore wasn't something we were prepared to do, he consented to simply watching it being disarmed. "But," he said. "What if a burglar knew what your number was? Then he'd be able to come in and turn it off." "Yes, he would," I replied. "So that's why we keep the number a secret." "You could tell me though," said the Boy, "and it wouldn't matter, because I couldn't turn the alarm off anyway." "Why couldn't you?" I asked. "Because I can't reach it," he said, running down the hall and jumping ineffectually at the panel. "I'm not tall enough. See?"

His lack of height seems suddenly to have become frustrating for him, but I made him feel a bit better about the situation by pointing out that I've now got so old that I've started to shrink. He laughed heartily when I said that in due course we're definitely going to pass each other, moving in opposite directions, and I was pleased to have made him happy. I just wish I was as happy about it myself.