There are many things I find wondrous about having a child, but today I was thinking about the amusing and enlightening fact that my three-year-old takes my questions seriously.

I am somewhat accustomed to people taking my questions seriously in general, of course — I am, after all, a teacher post-Socrates — but with my son the context is entirely different. I’m not questioning him about the history of the fourteenth century or what Iago is up to in Othello; more often than not I’m asking him about the basic workings of the world, the sorts of things you and I take for granted.

And because he is untrammeled by the world, because he takes these sometimes joking questions seriously, in a way that you or I never would, I am constantly humbled and forced to step back and look at the world through his fresh eyes.

About 15 minutes ago, for example, we were eating lunch. I was re-reading a medieval outlaw tale that I’ll be teaching in, oh, about 45 minutes. My son was eating a hot dog. The wife was tossing the infant equivalent of all-natural Cheetohs at our daughter, who was happily grabbing them and crunching them apart with her 6 teeth. The wee lad, finishing his hot dog, asked for more “things” to eat.

I didn’t look up from my book. “What things?”

“Things like sister. I’ll take and bite them with my teeth,” he said, chomping the air dramatically.

“Why won’t you bite them with your nose?” I asked.

He didn’t respond right away, and the quiet pause was enough to make me glance up from my reading. The boy, I saw, was sort of looking off into the space over my shoulder. His mouth was open, and a couple of his fingers were tracing the line of his incisors. Then, as I watched, those same fingers moved upward toward his nostrils and felt around a bit. The fingers fell away after a moment, and his eyes returned to mine. With all earnestness, in the serious tone best reserved for conclusions wrought of true scientific inquiry, he looked into my eyes and said, “Because my nose doesn’t have teeth, Daddy.”

I laughed. I closed my book. He got some baby Cheetohs. And my son, no doubt uncertain why his discovery caused such amusement but pleased to have been a part of it nonetheless, laughed, too.

For quite a long time now, there’s been a tradition in our house that after the boy’s teeth are brushed, his pajamas on, and his last book read, he gets to have a story. These stories, by no decision of my own, involve a snail named Steve and his lizard friend, Larry.

I know. Like I said: not my fault.

Anyway, the nightly adventures of Steve the Snail and Larry the Lizard usually involve Steve and Larry learning some important life lesson: some lesson that our son, almost invariably, failed to comprehend earlier in the day. Thus, if the young master didn’t do an adequate job of sharing with his little sister, Steve and Larry find themselves needing to share. I’m not sure that the lad has noticed the correlation.

It’s been very interesting over time to see his reaction to these stories change: from smiles of wonder to thoughtful introspection. Recently he’s started commenting on the story, adding to it after its done or providing a playback of what he found most interesting. It’s quite wonderful.

In tonight’s story, for instance, Steve the Snail and Larry the Lizard were walking down the sidewalk when Steve found a penny. Walking on, Steve found another. Noting that he now had two pennies while Larry had none, Steve decided to give one of his pennies with his friend. They each now had one penny, and this made them both very happy.

After hearing this, my son thought on the story for a good 30 seconds or so. “I don’t have a penny,” he said.

“Yes, you do,” I gently corrected. “You have pennies in the Jeep bank.” (His granddad made him an awesome “piggy” bank that looks like a Jeep; the young master loves it.)

“Oh!” he whispered. Then he thought some more. “Pennies, um, carried by birds.”

“Birds?” I asked.

“Bird dropped the penny” — he lifted his arms and dropped them down toward the bed — “fell from the sky and boom!” — at this his arms hit the bed dramatically — “Penny hit the sidewalk and bounced and Steve caught it.”

He nodded once more, confident that he’d figured it out. Then, as he snuggled up into my shoulder, it was my turn to smile in wonder: wonder at my boy, wonder at my life, and wonder at a snail catching pennies dropped by birds. It is, after all, a far better story.

The weatherfolks said it was going to snow in Charleston. They said it would even stick. A once-in-a-generation event. I admit I didn’t believe them.

The storm wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 8 or 9 pm, but schools let out early so folks could prepare. Road crews were put on high alert. News reporters ran around to key locations to cover the horror live. One channel referred to it as an impending “bombing,” which struck me as both silly and in rather bad taste. They acted like the Apocalypse was on its way. Stock up on supplies!

Well, almost unbelievably, it happened: Last night, it snowed here at The Citadel.
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I really ought to have been doing a bit more in the way of genuine work today, but instead I got side-tracked for a few hours playing with Google Buzz and — on a related note — my website here.

To begin with, Google Buzz is, well, interesting. I’m not a twit, er, a twitterer. But I can see where this Buzz business could lure me in where bickering birds could not.

As you can see, I’ve at least temporarily put into place a “BuzzFeed” over in the side column of the site, which is bringing in whatever buzzing I manage to do. I’m still experimenting, so it could disappear at any time. Or, alternatively, it could change form if I can figure out exactly how this guy set up his Buzz-er.

The other order of business for the day in terms of this website was a fix (at last!) of the connections between this site and Facebook. Comments made on my notes over there (that is, on the posts made here that get automatically copied over there) will now be automatically copied back over here. I don’t think comments made here can be shuffled over to there, but I’m happy to at least have full data here on this site.

Now if I can get Google to let me automatically feed posts like this into my Buzz stream, I’ll feel truly accomplished.