Tiarnan's love of nature

Now, I have heard many a curious thing in my life, but this is one of the more curious.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife was walking with Tiarnan, then fifteen months, in a park. Suddenly, he ran off across a field to where a lone tree stood. He looked up at the tree - which to him must have seemed a giant, but, as trees go, was both young and modest in size - and then he did something unaccountable: he put his arms around the tree and hugged it. He hugged it long and hard, embracing the tree as if it needed comfort. It was a long while before he released it, perhaps satisfied that he had comforted this lone tree, when it had, to him, clearly needed it.

Prince Charles would be proud of him. For those who don't know, Prince Charles won himself quite a reputation many years ago, for talking to plants. I suppose hugging them can be lumped in the same category. There is one difference, of course: Prince Charles the plant-talker was middle-aged at the time of the revelations; Tiarnan, the tree-hugger was fifteen months.

Who knows. Perhaps trees do feel a bit solitary at times. In any case, that was one tree that found itself unusually comforted by a little human, that day.

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan, now sixteen months, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and six months, and Fintan, three, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, creatively gifted adults, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)