Day 8: Knowledge

 

I am grateful for the knowledge I learn every time my son develops a new area of interest. Josh develops pretty intense interests in things and then those are his favorite things to talk about, so I'm going to take a little walk down memory lane of the different interest areas over the years. None of these have completely gone away, but they fade after a few years when a new topic captures his imagination.

 In preschool, it was trains, so we knew all the characters on Thomas, but we also knew the difference between a boxcar, hopper, and gondola.

In early elementary, the interest was bridges. We learned about the different kinds - arch bridge, suspension bridge, cable-stayed bridge, etc. We learned about the longest and the strongest and the most unusual bridges throughout the world. Two favorites were the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the memorable Gallupin Gertie in Tacoma, Washington.

In late elementary through middle school, it was natural disasters. We learned about the different wind speed classifications for hurricanes and tornadoes, about what causes natural disasters to form, and most of all what were the biggest and most notable disasters in history - everything from Vesuvius to Mt. St. Helens with volcanoes, Hurricane Katrina, the Tri-State Tornado. We still take note of every tsunami sign we see when we're on the coast and keep track of wildfires pretty closely.

Now, the beloved subject is shipwrecks. Titanic and Lusitania are the two that he can tell you about backwards and forwards, but he likes to learn about more obscure ones, about ship captains who acted honorably and dishonorably, and about how lifeboat regulations have changed over time.

These are all subjects I knew very little about before Josh, and they are subjects that make me think of him with a smile every time they come up in even the smallest way in every part of life. I'm grateful for the passion he brings to his interests and how that overflows to all of us.