Tree, Behold your Apple

Since she could talk and ask questions, I have been answering Emma's questions with the most detailed answer possible.  Every question for me has been a "teachable moment". 
 
I have now created a person who answers questions with such detail that I am often struck speechless.

In the car, where all great conversations happen and I need a go-pro camera installed with a steering wheel trigger mount to cue recording, Lucy asked, "Why do camels have fur if they live in the desert?"

While I was pondering a good answer when Emma jumped in with

It gets very cold in the desert at night, so the fur helps keep them warm when the temperature drops.  During the day it also helps keep them protected from the intense sun so that they don't get sunburned.  It also probably helps them to keep their body temperature regulated.  You know Lucy, not all deserts are hot.  In fact the definition of a desert is just a place that gets very little rainfall.  Some deserts are called high deserts and they never get hot.  There is one in Argentina that never gets warm, although they don't have any camels there.    I only bring it up so that you don't go through life thinking that deserts are warm.  They are just dry.

I just kept my mouth shut and drove.  Lucy, as always, remembers everything Emma says and now knows all about Patagonia.

I asked Emma later where she learned so much about deserts.  She said she read about them in a book titled Encyclopedia Britannica Letter D.  I am pretty sure that was a page turner.

A couple of mornings ago when we were near zero degrees, we left the faucets running all night.  She was brushing her beautiful hair and had static electricity on her brush.  When I walked into her room, presumably to wake her up, she was holding her brush near the stream of water coming from the faucet and causing it to not fall straight down anymore.  (The water will become attracted or repelled from the hairbrush.)  She noticed me watching her and said, "Look Mom, the static electricity from my brush is causing the water to change direction." 

Seriously.