outsmarted

when Q and i walked into his classroom today, 3 of the boys in his class were chasing each other around with elaborate helicopters they had constructed out of k’nex toys. i was impressed that these kids could build such complex machinery (furthering my fear that Q is woefully behind his much bigger, much older classmates) but Q was enthralled. he didn’t even want to sit down to eat his traditional breakfast pickles… he wanted to make a helicopter too. knowing that i didn’t have a particularly busy day at work, i figured what the heck, i could sit down with him and help him build one, maybe it would help him settle in to the new room some more. so i looked at the other boys’ copters and attempted to copy them, which was hard since they were running and whizzing by. Q let me struggle for a few minutes, trying to recreate the other kids’ work and hunt out the right pieces, but when i attached a piece incorrectly he admonished me, “mom, that’s not what the directions say.” wait. there are @#$% directions?!?!? sure enough, in his hand is a laminated card that illustrates the helicopter building process in a manner that pre-schoolers can easily follow. he took the half-copter i had created and started adding the pieces to it just as the card instructed. man, i feel dumb.