sophie’s anatomy class

I love listening to the kids play. They come up with the most amazing stuff. RIght now Sophie is making complex pirate costumes for both of them, all with construction paper and yards and yards of tape.

A lot of the time they play around themes, for example, last week I hurt my knee and so there was a lot of body/injury games as they worked out what had happened to me. Luc runs up to me at one point and says, “Sophie is my doctor and I have a broken leg bone.” Sophie, walking by, rolls her eyes and says in this exasperated tone, “He won’t let me put a cast on.” Luc runs off, but then a minute later he comes up to me, pointing at his throat and says, “Do I have any bones in here?”

That afternoon they got the body book out (this anatomy book we have with lots of huge, color pictures) and poured over it for a surprisingly long time. This is some of what I overheard:

Sophie, pointing to a picture of a skeleton says, “This is what if your body was all apart and just bones.”

Luc: “Why would it be just bones?”

Sophie: “If you were dead.”

“Oh.”

Turn page. Luc: “Why is the brain all those colors?”

Sophie: “Its the different parts of the brain. It’s where you think different thoughts.”

At this point I am madly making notes, trying to be inconspicuous so they won’t notice that I’m spying on them.

Luc points to another picture of skull bones and says, “This is my bones.”

Sophie: “No, Luc, it’s a picture of someone else’s bones.”

“Oh.”

Turn page. “What’s this stuff, Mom?” She’s pointing at some yellow lumps in a cross section of a throat.

I read the caption. “Saliva glands. It’s where your spit comes from.”

Luc looks concerned. “Do I have it?”

Sophie: “You have spit don’t you?”

“Oh.”

It goes on and on. I don’t have the time to transcribe all the cool stuff they say. Maybe I should hire someone.