My son has been difficult these past few days. As in "more difficult that  usual, which is pretty damn difficult compared to most kids his age". However, today he made me beam with pride, so I'll tell you about that instead of the bad stuff.

I'm in the kitchen, making meatballs in marinara sauce, the news on the TV behind us, the wife and myself having a snippet of conversation over the incessant babble of the creatures. One of us (I think it was me) mentions the term "square root" in connection with something. Creature the Elder (age: 5.5) asks "What's a square root". I tell him that a square root of something is when something times itself equals the first something. Since this is pretty vague explanation, I add an example: "For instance, the square root of a hundred is ten". A short (pretty damn short) silence ensues, and then he pipes up: "So the square root of ten thousand is.. a hundred!" Five and a half years old.

I'd like to say, in the spirit of of the bulldog Spike from the old Tom and Jerry cartoons, "Dat's ma boy!!", but the truth is that I was never exceptionally good at math. Neither was my beloved. I always knew his real father, like I always kid my beloved, was some viking-descended (and apparently good with numbers) dude named Magnuson... :-D (j/k, dammit).

^{Damned if I know where the nordic look came from...} 

But since I'm the one raising him, I'll take some of the credit here.  Afterwards he was also pretty good at his third or fourth game of chess since I began teaching him the game earlier this week, but that's just icing.