How to measure the world

Fintan, four, has a certain view of his Daddy. Today, a little bit of that view became clear.

We were in Takashimaya shopping centre one floor up from the ground, looking at a Christmas tree that stood in front of us, above us, and below us. Our floor meant we were level with its mid-section.

Fintan looked at the tree, looked upwards and downwards and remarked:

"The tree is bigger than Daddy!" His voice was filled with wonder that there should be anything in the world bigger than Daddy.

I was touched. For him, I must seem to be a giant indeed - and for him, I am the basic unit of "bigness" against which all other big things are measured. An object is only truly big, if it is bigger than the biggest person he knows: his own Daddy.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)