This is Your Brain

A variety of comments from Buddy and Peanut over the past week prompted me to consider giving them a class on Princess and Her Brain. I've been avoiding this topic, as Brain Functions was a class I narrowly escaped a D in while in college. Luckily, I just finished The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog. Super good read, buy the way. Highly recommended. In it, the author talks about speaking to an elementary class about this very topic. Also, he includes a handy brain hierarchy chart in the back, plus this nifty way you can hold your hand to show what the brain (sort of) looks like. Last night I started paging through the book getting prepared. Josh looked at me quizzically, then said, "oh I get it. You're going to go way overboard with this, aren't you?"

Why, of course I am. Haven't you known me for 18 years?

This morning, while Princess was paying back three hours of screaming from last night with some peace and quiet upstairs, I sat down with Buddy and Peanut. I made a loose fist and stuck my thumb out and down. I explained that my thumb was the brain stem, and my stacked-up fingers were the midbrain, limbic system, cortex, and neo cortex. I told how we move through the brain as we grow, and told them a little about what each area controls. I showed them where they are (limbic system) and where I am (neocortex, of course!), and then I showed them where Princess is (midbrain), and that's why she has trouble with this and this and this and this. It went pretty well. Buddy even corrected me once when I couldn't remember what part I was talking about.

In fact, it may have gone too well. Because later Peanut and Princess had a (typical, ongoing, and redundant) falling-out over the game Sorry. Exasperated, Peanut waved her fist in the air, stuck out her thumb and yelled, "you know where YOU are, Princess? You are RIGHT HERE!!!"

She was pointing to her midbrain finger.