Kids are good for your brain

I am just beginning to realize this.  Our kids keep my wife and me mentally hopping.  Our son Li'l D, in particular, asks us tons of questions, being the studious, intuitive and knowledge-seeking-type.  Today?  We were discussing ... oh I don't know what ... and I guess I said something along the lines of something being relative to something else ... who knows.  Li'l D immediately asked:

What does 'relative' mean?

I quickly thrust back with:

It's when you compare something to something else.

Not having enough, Li'l D parried my verbal comeback with:

What does 'compare' mean?

"Holy crap!" I thought to myself.  After a while, meaning a few years of questioning and interrogation like this, you begin to think quite quickly on your proverbial feet.  So, gathering up all of my mental weaponry, and as we were in the car heading to dinner, I looked ahead and said:

See the blue truck and brown van in front of us?  Which one is taller?

Li'l D:

The blue truck.

Dad:

Right.  So you compared the two, and the blue one is tall relative to the brown one.

He seemed relatively satisfied with that explanation, compared with previous sessions.

My words don't do true justice to this, but afterward, during dinner, it really got me to thinking that our kids really do keep us on our mental toes.  Maybe that is the answer to Oldtimers' Disease ... having kids around to keep you constantly thinking.