My Little Cartographer

A. loves maps. Fortunately, in first grade each student has to make a map of each continent in the world. Once he's done with a continent, he brings the map home and we hang it up in his room. One of his favorite bed-time games is "On which continent is.....(insert country's name here)." It's actually really hard to stump him. He also often chooses his atlas for bedtime reading.

So we're at Christmas Eve dinner at my sister's house, discussing Santa's latest whereabouts according to Norad. My nephew said that he'd heard Santa was last seen in Canada. A. mused, "I wonder which island he's on. Well, I guess it wouldn't be an island. I guess it would be an archipelago."

G. and I are used to him spouting out random facts, so we nodded and mumbled, "mmmm-hmmm, an archipelago, OK." and continued eating our ice cream.

The rest of my family was stunned, then hysterical. Both my sister and her husband cried, "WHAT did you just say?" My college freshman nephew exclaimed, "I've never even heard of that! I don't even know what that is!"

A. calmly licked his spoon and explained, "It's a chain of islands that are close together but don't touch each other."

My family proceeded to quiz him on land forms and he slowly and clearly explained what constituted an isthmus and a peninsula. And, for good measure, the difference between a peninsula and a cape.

It was one of those stories that will become family lore, as A. is branded the family Keeper of Obscure Trivia. There are definitely worse things to be branded.

And when we went to Arizona, he felt the need to make a map of my father's house (because it was so much bigger than ours, I guess). My dad's name is Stew, not Stoo, by the way. And he calls him Poppy, not Stew or Stoo.

(not to scale)