How that works?

Being an engineering geek, some of my favourite times with Quinn are when I'm explaining how something works to him. It's especially fun when he gets into his "I'm learning something" mode, where he gets quiet and attentive, and sometimes even makes lyrical "hmmmMmm" sounds. Today it officially transitioned to him actively wondering. "How it works?" he said a couple times today. And then he'd listen attentively while I explained as best I could in terms he'd understand.

The first was the dishwasher. He got a big kick out of me describing how the water comes out of the holes in the spinny things, and he spun the spinny things around for awhile. (Hopefully the dishwasher doesn't suffer the same fate as our currently ailing vacuum cleaner, which has spent a little too much time as a pumper firetruck.)

The second was his toy fishing rod. "How it works?" he said? And so I got a pen and a string and showed how when you turned the pen with the string attached to it, the string wound around the pen, and turning the handle on the fishing rod was like turning the pen. He wanted to see inside the fishing rod. I got a screwdriver and started to take it apart, but alas one of the screws stripped and we couldn't get into it. (You just can't get a good used toy plastic fishing rod for $1.89 any more)

Inquisitive, this boy, and in an analytical way too. I have to say that at the outset I was sort of dreading the "why" phase, but right now I'm quite excited about it. Several people have commented about his analytic tendencies. Wait til I start showing him spreadsheets! He makes his engineer daddy proud!