Notes on Oliver

Oliver just turned five. He is completely obsessed with anything relating to the universe and our solar system, planets, galaxies, etc. He checked out a book about each planet from the library, and keeps renewing them over and over because he doesn’t want to give them back. My parents gave him a book called “The Night Sky” for his birthday, and that includes information on each planet, plus stars and other things, so he said it’s okay now if we take a few of the library books back. He is always asking questions about the universe (which planet is hotter, which has more moons, which ones have atmospheres, etc.) but he has started reading so much about the planets that he actually answers his own questions now.

He reads a lot and is very good at it – he even helps Tristan out sometimes with sounding out some of the more difficult words (Ollie reads from so many science books that he is used to sounding out longer words).

He still draws all the time and continues to add to his huge stack of drawings. He just finished making drawings of the sun, moon, and all the planets, and he loves lining them all up and looking at them and talking about them.

The other day we were over at the Bates's house and Daniel and I overheard Oliver and William Bates (also five, and Ollie's good friend) get into an interesting debate about Pluto's status as a planet. (Oliver has very fond feelings for Pluto and its moon, Charon. He has read several books giving different opinions on the matter, and wasn't sure which one was right, so we told him that he could decide for himself whether he wanted to count Pluto as a planet or not.)

It was so funny listening to them having this serious discussion. Oliver was insisting to William that Pluto is a dwarf planet, while William was wondering if it might actually be a moon that used to orbit Neptune. When Ollie heard this, he retorted, "William! HOW could a moon have a moon?!!" (meaning, how could Pluto be a moon when it has a moon of its own).

I love the simple logic of five-year olds.