My Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Dottie come to New York every April,  painfully reminding us of how they used to live so nearby in Summit, New Jersey and now live so far away in Winchester, Virginia.  Anyway, this year we joined them on a cold, rainy Saturday at the Museum of Natural History (sadly scrapping our outdoor plans), and while there in the Brain exhibit we came across an interesting question. 

There were two giant shapes hanging from the ceiling, one was very pointy and the other round.  Several adults were standing there with confused looks on their faces as they tried to solve this riddle: “Which shape is named Kiki and which is Booba?”  I joined their troubled facial expressions until Huck announced, “That one’s Kiki because it looks like a K and that one’s Booba because it looks like a B.”  Sure enough, the sign went on to explain that most people eventually call the pointy one Kiki because of the sharp “K” sound and the other one is Booba because of the softer  “B” sound.  The adults standing there walked away and one of them said, “We should have brought a kid with us.”

And it’s true: kids know things the rest of us don’t.  I guess we’re thinking too hard.

Then a few days later Huck and I spent the afternoon at the Bronx Zoo and we found a sign that asked another interesting question: “What bird flies underwater?  Go to the Aquatic Birds Building to find out.”  So we quickly skadaddled over to Aquatic Birds and I read every single sign in sight, desperately searching for the answer.  We got through the whole place and I apologized to Huck for not figuring it out.  He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “It was the penguin, Mommy.”  In my best smart adult voice I said, “Honey, I don’t think penguins can fly,” to which he answered in his better adult voice, “They fly underwater.  That’s what that thing meant.”

Good thing I always bring a kid with me.