This morning, Dorothy was putting her different shape blocks into their bucket. The blocks come in four cross-section shapes: circle, square, triangle, and star. Putting the circle through the round hole is easy. The others are more difficult because of their lower rotational symmetry (i.e., there are fewer angles it can be rotated to and still fit through the hole).
Dorothy has been putting the circular blocks through the round hole off and on for weeks now. More recently, she has occasionally been able to get a square or star shaped block through their holes, but she'll often give up. This morning, after getting frustrated at not being able to get one of the blocks through any of the holes, she took the lid off the bucket and put the block in directly. To an adult, this seems like cheating. But of course, in a different sense it is a very smart tactic - if you're trying to get the blocks in the bucket, and there's an obstacle you can't overcome, simply remove the obstacle.
Hopefully she learns a little more about self restraint before she starts seeing Daddy as an obstacle...
Posted by Tom Nugent at May 15, 2005 10:59 AMI know exactly what you mean.....I often think of many of my coworkers as obstacles.....the problem is fingerprints and new DNA technology.
Posted by: Tom at May 16, 2005 05:13 AMMaybe the star is harder to get into the hole, because as everyone knows, A STAR HAS FIVE POINTS!
Posted by: Tom at May 16, 2005 05:14 AM