SCIENCE, TUCK AND EMI STYLE:
(All these comments were made within the last 48 hours.)

NATURAL HISTORY
Tuck: What's a safari?
Me: It's when people go to Africa wearing safari hats, like Dora, and drive around in SUVs looking for animals like lions and tigers. The people sleep in tents at night. They used to shoot the animals and bring back their fur and their heads. Isn't that strange? Now they try to take the animals' pictures with a camera instead.
Tuck: But then the animals couldn't see! You can't see without your head!
Me: Well, the animals were dead because they got shot first. When people go hunting, it's to kill animals.
Tuck: What can things do when they're dead?
Me: Not much.
Emi, with assurance: I never get dead! You can't have any fun.

Crows eat yucky stuff off people's roofs. Some of the stuff is dead. That's why they're always up on roofs. -- Tuck and Emi together.

PSYCHOLOGY
[Re. why some grownups like to watch scary movies:] Maybe Tracy likes to be scared because she has a special scaring bone in her body. -- Emi

[Re. how and why people get angry:] All people have fire-boxes inside them. When something happens that makes them mad, their fire boxes get hot and then they look mad. -- Emi

HEALTH
If someone talks on their cell phone for too long, the cell phone will stick to their ear. It will stay there all day and all night. It will never come off. They will have a problem sleeping. -- Emi

French fries aren't a breakfast food or a lunch food or a dinner food. Also, they don't help me grow. But we eat them anyway because we like them. -- Emi

CHEMISTRY
It's good to drink water because there's lots of air in water so then you get more air. You know how I know there's air in water? Because it has bubbles in it when you mix it up and when it comes out of the faucet. -- Emi

Rust just means there's no paint on a car. -- Emi
No! Rust means something's falling apart! -- Tuck

GEOGRAPHY
Emi: This rock looks like a heart. We found it on the beach at Old Vashioned Granville Island. That's where Lori's dad lives -- near Vancouver. It's pretty far away. [Lori's dad actually lives on Vashon Island, 20 minutes by ferry from Seattle. Granville Island, which I guess could be described as old fashioned (!), is a waterfront marketplace in Vancouver, B.C.]

Tuck: Do you want to know how to get to Mount Rainier? [Pointing to a placemat that has a colorful cartoon drawing on every state.] You start where we live, at the Space Needle. Then you drive past the happy potatoes [Idaho] and the Mad Cloud [Canada]. If you drive too close to this dinosaur [Montana] he will eat you. If you can get there, Mount Rainier is here [points to a mountain illustrating Alaska].

PALENTOLOGY
[Re. why there are only dinosaur bones left, and no living dinosaurs:] The dinosaurs just climbed out of their bones and left them behind. -- Tuck

BOTANY
[Pointing to Texas on the map placemat:] People stuck flowers on those cactuses to make them look fancy. -- Emi

EPISTEMOLOGY
Finally, our last exchange for the night. Emi is lying in her bed, the room lit only by a Hello Kitty nightlight.
Emi: Mama, I have another "why?" question.
Me: Emi, I already answered your one bedtime "why?" question!
Emi: But I have a lot of questions in my body.
Me: Where do they all come from?
Emi: Some of them start in my fingers and then go all the way up my arm [tracing with one hand over her arm], through my neck, into my mouth, then I just ask them! And some of them come in through my mouth. Then I think about them in my brain, then they go back out again.
Me: Emi, those are some really interesting ideas.
Emi, sleepily: Yeah. I like the questions that start in my fingers best.