2/12/2012 - logic

A few days ago, Evan grabbed a small toy car from the toy bin and started saying something that I didn't quite understand.  It was one of those toy cars that had wheels that only turned when you push the car along a surface, i.e., it wasn't motorized or needed any battery.  It looked like Evan was trying to turn it on because he flipped the car to the underside to look for a switch.  The reason he did this is because he has another bigger toy car which does require batteries and had a switch on the underside.  But this toy car didn't have a switch.  He got a little irritated that I didn't know what he wanted so he pulled me by the hand and led me to the hallway closets and signaled me to open it.  After I opened it, he pointed up at one of the shelves and said something like 'arrie'.  He had seen me take batteries out of a container on the shelf so I figured he was looking for that.  So I brought out the container, opened it and he immediately went to grab a battery.  But before he was done, he also signaled me to get the screwdriver out of the screwdriver kit/box.  Basically, he wanted to make the toy car go, and so in order to do that, he concluded that he needed batteries.  And in order to install the batteries, he needed a screwdriver to open the battery door.  None of this would be remarkable if he was a 3 or 4 year old, but he's only 16.5 months old.  Perhaps all babies are able to transfer knowledge about one object onto a similar object.  But not only did he know that the toy car needed batteries, he also knew that it wasn't a simple matter of having a battery, but that the battery needed to be placed into the car and that required a tool.  Amazing set of logic gears running in there!