The two-legged alarm clock.

I have a two-legged alarm clock in my house. His name is Tiarnan.

Tiarnan, two, is an early riser. He wakes up on his own, all bright and perky. Recently, he has taken to checking up on his Dad during weekdays. If I am not up, by the time he is, he will quietly come into my room.

"Daddy! Get up for work!" he will say, in a quiet voice that is, I suppose, calculated to wake me, but not mummy. This is a bit difficult, of course, but he tries his best.

The first time he did it, about three weeks ago, I was really pleasantly surprised. It showed me that he was thinking of my day and what I had to do - and had thought of something he could do, to help.

He has done so several times since, coming into my room at about the time I should be up and getting ready, to check up on me. I find it a sweet way to wake in the morning.

I wonder what he thinks "work" is? He knows it involves leaving the house and going somewhere...but I wonder what that is, in his imagination? He has understood this much: that it must occur at a particular time and that Daddy needs to leave to get to it.

Interestingly, he has never tried to wake me for work during a weekend. Perhaps this is coincidence, or perhaps he has already picked up on the difference between the two.

In some ways, he is rather more effective than a real alarm clock. If he starts to talk to me, I really have to talk back. A real alarm clock, too often, gets switched off and ignored. You can't really ignore your own two year old son trying to wake you up.

Thank you, Tiarnan, for having the thoughtfulness to check on me in the morning.

I wonder if he will always be an early bird, waking before everyone else? Or will he become like the rest of us, snug in our beds and loathe to leave them?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight 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, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)