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My Kid, The Sponge My kid, he's a sponge for knowledge, a human sponge.
Only three years old and already a little Renaissance man, a miniature
Leonardo Da Vinci. True story: the other day he's on the floor with
his crayons. I go, "What are you drawing there, kiddo?" He
says — get this: "The Wast Suppa." Huh? The Wast Suppa? Three years old! Ever hear
of anything like that in your life? What are you gonna do with a kid
like that? Hey, the speech thing — fixable. The intelligence, the
smarts — God given. To be honest, on closer inspection, the artwork wasn't
what you'd call an exact replica of the famous Last Supper.
It looked like… a lot of scribbling. But what do you expect? The
kid's only three years old. Let's cut him a break, all right?
Having a brainy bugger like this around the house did
not occur by happenchance. First thing, I decided there'd be no Sesame
Street Teletubbies for my little Einstein. Instead I did some serious
nosing around in the area of Kid Improvement until I found a program
called TEACH YOUR CHILD HOW TO THINK LIKE LEONARDO DA VINCI.
How could I go wrong? I mean, you name the field and Leonardo was into
it. Painting! Drawing! Military planning! Math mumbo-jumbo that would
make your head spin! And even — hard to believe in an era when
the only things getting off the ground were birds — aeronautics!
Under my strict supervision, this little bugger of mine has been watching
and listening to the Da Vinci program day and night for the major part
of his existence on this planet. Hell, I'd even keep it on while he
was catching forty winks in the bassinet. And that's the secret to early childhood achievement:
push, push, push. And when you're done with that, push some more. Otherwise,
let's face it, infants and toddlers are gonna get distracted into all
kinds of pointless stuff. Take blocks, for instance. Could someone please
explain to me what kids are gonna do with blocks in later life?
Give me drawing, military planning, aeronautics any day! You wanna talk creative? You wanna talk spongability? Wherever my kid is, all he wants to do is scribble, scribble,
scribble. Paper, walls, floors, furniture — anything in front of
him; it doesn't matter. You know Picasso? Same way. I heard when you
went out to eat with Picasso you could never get to dessert because
he'd be sitting there scribbling all over everything in sight —
tablecloth, napkins, back of his hand, back of your hand. In
fact, right at this moment in my kid's development, I think he's going
through one of those "periods" similar to Picasso, where you
couldn't really figure out what he was doing exactly,
but you knew it had stupendous written all over it. You knew it was
gonna lead to something BIG. That's why every scrap my mini Renaissance
man puts his crayon to goes right into the trunk marked MY KID'S EARLY
CHILDHOOD MASTERPIECES. Can you imagine what his version of the Last Supper is gonna be worth in thirty years? It stupefies the mind.
But this Bring Your Child Up to Be A Genius thing is tricky business,
and not for everybody. To achieve any kind of similar success, you gotta
have two things: 1) a kid who has the proper wiring up in the ol' kebob
(in other words, a sponge), and 2) at least one parent
who possesses an ounce of common sense. Otherwise all the "Make
Your Kid A Genius" programs in the world ain't gonna make a dent. You take my friend Arthur. After witnessing what my miniature Renaissance
man was up to, he ran out and bought a similar program for his recently
arrived chip off the ol' block. But with one little Da Vinci in the
neighborhood already, Arthur had to go in another direction. So what
does he buy? HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD TO PLAY LIKE HOROWITZ. Huh?
This is a man who does not own a piano! A man who lives at the top of
a six-floor walkup. And does he start with a kiddie instrument to plink-plink
on? No. For Arthur, only top shelf will do. Guy goes into hock for a
Steinway, then has to rent a frickin' crane to get it through his sixth-floor
window. And me being his friend, I'm obligated to attend these Saturday
afternoon "recitals" Arthur holds in his living room that
are, frankly, painful experiences. How can I put this tactfully? The
kid don't know a piano from a trombone. Just bangs away on the keys
for two minutes, gets bored, and spends the rest of the "recital"
trying to escape from the car seat/piano bench contraption Arthur's
hooked up in front of the Steinway. Just this afternoon Arthur ended
the show by leading us in a standing ovation. "Is that a nine-month-old
Vladimir Horowitz or that a nine-month-old Vladimir Horowitz?" When I got home and my wife asked, "Any improvement?" I said,
"You don't wanna know." And that's when my eyes lit upon my little Leonardo. Cute as a button
in his blue beret, he was on the floor, a drop cloth below him, one
hand with a crayon, the other a paintbrush, mumbling something to himself
about the "Mona Wisa." (The speech thing — we'll fix
it, we'll fix it.) At the same time my parental chest was expanding with pride, I couldn't
help but feel down in the dumps for poor Arthur, because if his kid
does not prove the old adage, you can lead a horse to water, I don't
know what does. Fortunately for me, my wife, and the world at large, my kid happens
to be a horse who wants to do nothing but drink! And then drink some
more! And drink some more after that! He has no choice. The kid is a
sponge! A human sponge! |
