Bugs, Caves and Coming to Conclusions

Sometimes I feel like I don't recognize my child.  He's sitting at the kitchen table eating his snack and he says, "Spiders like dark places, so lots of spiders live in caves."
"Oh," I say.
"And lots of bugs live in caves"
"Yes, they do."
"And bats."
"Yes."
"And bedbugs live in caves."
"You're right they do.  Where did you learn so much about caves?"
"Oh, books, articles, magazines - YOU, Daddy."
"So you just collected the information."
"Yes.  I learned about the bedbugs from an article you read to me."

All of this so earnest and serious, like a tour guide to the world.  Like a fourth grader giving an oral report.  What happened to that helpless newborn baby who knew nothing other than to seek the warmth and comfort of his mother's body?  Where's the baby who chewed on everything and was obsessed with shoes and power cords?

He's not, of course, satisfied to simply collect reliable facts.  He also wants to form his own conclusions about the world.  Today he decided that his frisbee flew better when it was wet.  He dug through his sandbox looking for the "root system" of a plant that had sprouted there.  And when he pulled up the plant without any roots he kept digging until he found some more plant matter that he felt sure was the root system of the plant.  At supper he wanted to know if mushrooms had root systems.  I told him I wasn't sure.  I know they have some kind of underground system, but I don't know if it's called a root system.  He decided it should be called a "growth system."  OK.  I'll go with that.  At least he didn't instruct me to "Google it Mom."  I get that pretty often.

Also, his own particular brand of logic sometimes gets him into trouble.  After protesting six different times that he REALLY did NOT need to use the bathroom, then demanding that I say "Please" (I pulled the "I'm the mommy" card on that one) and stomping into the bathroom with grunts and even shouts of displeasure - after all that and a long interval of singing coming from the bathroom - he came out calm and ready to carry on.  He told me, "I really did need to pee, but I was having so much fun playing that I didn't want to go."
"I know" I said.
"How did you know?" he demanded.
"Because you hadn't gone since preschool and I did't think you had used the potty at preschool."
"I don't use the potty at preschool," he says - again with great conviction.
"That's what I thought."
"But I did at the other preschool.  I think it's because I haven't seen the bathroom much."
"But you go in there when you wash your hands."
"Yeah..."  He's not really impressed with my logic on this one.

It's the same preschool, by the way, just a different building.  Same routines, etc.  But it's true that when he started at the other one he was so knew to the whole potty-using process that he was pretty frequently prompted to use the facilities, whereas by now he's pretty much on his own in that regard.

I have digressed.  I'm pretty sure I had a point in there somewhere.  Something about the workings of an almost-five-year-old's mind.  Mind boggling sometimes, I admit.