Information sponges

My children are sponges. They absorb knowledge by all sorts of means - copying and watching, pure osmosis, practicing and sometimes, very occasionally and at last resort, by following instructions. I think the following instructions method is the slowest, especially when those instructions come from mother.
Little Miss still learns a lot by copying and pretending - to be me, or a princess, or a ninja, or a spoilt brat. She can't wipe her own bottom, but she can unlock and play a TV ondemand series on the Ipad without a second tap. She has a fixed slightly skewed world view and is totally inflexible. If the real world doesn't conform to her ideas, then, look out, its mega-tanty time. She is often still like all good toddlers, the Mugabe of her manor.
Little Brother preferred method of learning is digital. Ben 10 and FRIV teach him all he needs to know to advance his career as a weapons design expert (expanding  his range that began with the walking axe). Thank goodness for Lego, which gives him a real life R&D platform. He also loves the nightly news weather report. Second preferred method is copying/following the instructions of his brother. Least preferred of all time is listening to Mum telling him to pick up clothes, close his drawers, put away his shoes, empty his lunchbox. That stuff is the work of the robots he is trying to design, so stop interrupting me, Mum! He is working hard on reading as an information source but the bandwidth is  limited, upload and download a bit slow (especially b, d, p and q's confusion, I mean what imagination-less fool designed them).
Big Brother initially needed more parental instruction as first child off the block - but these days I'm semi-retired as the others just copy him. At eight years young, his brain is now wired for information via the written word. He's embarked onto a journey into the world of Harry Potter, picking up a wealth of helpful knowledge - 'Mum!' He greeted me first thing this morning - ' Guess what! Don't worry! Aunt Marge has a moustache too!'
(That's a slap in the face on a number of ego-crushing levels, cause, you know, I had always pictured myself as more of a Hermione)
Big Brother picks up information from the TV too, and on hearing that a golfer got played $1.6 M for winning one game, he declared - I am definitely going to play THAT game'.
'Rugby players, and tennis players get paid a lot too' I commented.
Little Brother looked worried. ' Is there a way  to make money without playing sport?' He asked.
' Sure' I said, ' you could always invent or design things'.
'Yah!' He pumped his fist into the air and leapt off the couch as he yelled, ' I'm going to sell my inventions to the WORLD!'
'And, ' he added slyly,  ' I' m going to sell them to myself!'
However there are times when holes in their knowledge suddenly become glaringly obvious. Big Brother turned 8 recently, and stealing my sister's plan for growing independent children, he started making his own school lunch. Which became a problem day one when he didn't actually know how to butter and cut a sandwich! (How on earth did I miss that lesson -  was it was always easier to make the things, than deal with the chaos of teaching 3? Shabby parenting, I admit).
That night I also noticed he couldn't really use a knife and fork to eat a meal! Another habit of mine - automatically setting the table with fork and spoon, and providing pre-cut food for ease of mastication. So, it's my turn to refine a few skills, perhaps starting with identifying with heroes more my own, (cough), age range, and, keeping in mind I'm learning too - the always changing and everyday different lesson of how to be a parent.

Conversation starters

I was admiring Little Brothers latest drawing of what might have been a motorbike. Mum : "Tell me about your picture, it looks amazing"

LB : " It's got really big guns" 

Mum: " It sure does. You are going to be a great engineer or maybe, a designer when you grow up" 

" Me too! " said Big Brother. " I want to be an all black and a policeman and a designer and an engineer. I'm already a weapons expert"

"Me too! " LB agreed, " I already invented the walking axe". 

Another day, LB "Why did god make mosquitoes?"

Mum : " Umm, I don't know .   Do you have any ideas ?"

LB : " No, duh, Mosquitoes don't even have ears.  But, I think he made them to suck out the blood of things that had too much blood."

Fair enough.

Another day, BB " Mum, I think I have worked out why you are growing a mustache"

Mum : "Oh?" 

BB : "I think when you were younger you ate too many kiwi fruit skins. And now the prickles are coming out in your mustache."

Gee, thanks.