Toddler insights into understanding

My little boy will be turning four this weekend. We are hosting one of those parties with a zillion toddlers, copious amounts of candy and a bouncy castle.

He seems to have gotten through the toddler tantrum stage without causing us too much heartache and is now into the philosophical stage where he asks some surprisingly insightful questions. He asked me "Where did the first baby come from?" and so I messed with his head a little with the chicken and egg paradox :-). Other questions that come to mind include, on being woken up by him one morning, "Why do we have blood in our body?", "When I’m all grown up, who will be your little boy?" and "Will I have a little boy when I’m bigger?"

The other day when we were discussing family relations and related terms, he retorted pretty definitively "You are not my parents. You are my Mummy and Daddy!"

So, you can imagine my surprise and amusement when he recently asked me "Why is there fire on the sun?" I mean he’s turning four – how do you answer that?

Rather than try and water it down, I explained it like a tech-guy would. I casually spent about 3 minutes explaining in detail the process of nuclear fusion in the core of a star and how lighter elements fuse into heavier elements, releasing tremendous amounts of energy in the process. He listened intently, not missing a beat. When I had finished my explanation, I asked him if he understood all that I had told him.

Without even the slightest hesitation he said definitively,

"Yes, Daddy."

.. and then went back to playing Wii Sports.

I then realised that he has all the qualifications needed to have a long and very successful career in IT or finance.