Inquiring mind

Last year, when we purchased a membership to the Science Center, we received a 1-year subscription to Popular Science magazine. I never did much more than flip through it casually. Honestly, it seemed pretty full of a bunch of far-fetched ideas, to me. But we got our very last issue yesterday, and Jacob was just mesmerized by the front cover.
He easily spent about 10 minutes just quietly studying the picture. I finally asked what he was looking at, and then the questions started pouring out.
"Wook, mom. What's this?" as he pointed to the yellow vehicle. "That's kind of like a car."
Then pointing to the track attached to the yellow car, "What's this, mommy mom?" "Well, Jacob, that's kind of like a train track for the car. See? The car rides on it."
"What's this one here?", pointing to the white vehicle closest to the corner of the photo. "That's another car."
"What's this?", pointing to the headlight on the yellow car. "That's the car's light, Jacob."

Back to quietly contemplating. And then Melinda chimed in, and I had to try and explain how they were pretend and something that someone wanted to invent in the future. Ugh, future - not really something my 4-year-old daughter gets, yet.

But I was really struck by how quiet and thoughtful Jacob was about this picture. Trying to fit it in with his understanding of reality. My understanding is that at this age, he doesn't have the ability to differentiate between reality and imaginary. So I would guess that seeing a fantastical picture like this one would really stop and make him think. No wonder he had so many questions, and was trying to figure out how it all worked.

And you know, I can really see him growing up to be like Jesse. He always seems to want things to be exactly right, and to understand how they work.

*****
On a completely different note, we have decided to move to a new apartment in a different (but nearby) complex, on a 6-month lease. We're very tired of our current apartment (we've been here since before Melinda was 1 year old), and we're starting to feel pretty cramped. Moving will do several things: Give us more square footage (we're going to a 2 bedroom + den), allow us to de-clutter our possessions all at once, give us a fresh clean apartment to enjoy (instead of the infestations we've dealt with on and off since living here, and the really gross carpet), and most importantly, light a fire under Jesse to really start that job hunting he's been meaning to get around to. We picked up an application for the apartment today, and will be turning it in on Monday. Time to start gathering moving boxes!