Can't Believe She's Almost Four

That Ava is four is intimidating for a couple reasons.

You see, the first memory that most people have takes place around the age of four. To date it's been kind of nice to think of everything we did as "pre-season." Of course, it's not... but there's something different about knowing that anything I say could become part of Ava's lifelong record.

Kids can't distinguish between dreams and the real world until around the age of four. It's been nice to think "hey, she'll just think it was a dream... I didn't drop that plate."

When I was living in Italy between the ages of 4 and 7 I got a book about Astronomy. I don't know exactly when it was... closer to 4 or closer to 7... so I usually think of it as being earlier "just in case." That book sparked and intense interest in space. I remember being in a car seat thinking about the moon and sun, correcting my friend's parental unit when she said something incorrect about space. By the age of six I was saving for a telescope which I would use to buy binoculars when we made it back to the states ('scopes are expensive when you earn a nickel at a time.) I used my binoculars to look at stars. A few years later I got a telescope and saw Halley's Comet with my mom.

My interest in space naturally morphed into an interest in all things science. At the age of 14ish I had a subscription to Scientific American. Computers were scientific so when my father started talking about them I wanted to jump in. By 4th grade one of the highlights of my Ft. Leavenworth, KS life was talking to my neighbor about subroutines... he was a slightly older geek whose knowledge in such things was impressive to me.

This interest in science led me to join the physics program at Georgia Tech. And my interest in computers got me involved in the intertubes.

It's not a big leap to see that the book I got at the age of 4ish had a huge impact on the course of my life. Would I have naturally gravitated towards science anyway? Who knows. Maybe. Maybe not. I just know that there was a definite link between that book and the course of my life.

So here I am with an almost 4 year old daughter. What am I doing to shape her future? What book will inspire her? Or will it be a song? Or a building? Or a vacation?

While I understand fully the futility of trying to plan or predict such things, it does make me think a good bit about the impact we have on our kids. I usually conclude that I should be doing more. I don't want to bias her... I want her to choose her path. But I do want to make available lots of things that she might find interesting.

On the clock, time to help Ava find some inspiration!