Time in a Bottle

My eldest discovered an hourglass for the first time today. He had seen it, and even played with it, many times since taking it home from his first dentist appointment, but this was the first time he had seen its time pass a few yellow grains at a time. He propped himself against the bathroom counter and stared with intensity as the sand descended through the time managing bottleneck in the middle. The how and why question started to pour from him faster then I could answer. It was clear he had seen a familiar object from an entirely new perspective. He flipped the hourglass over and said, "It's going away," as he observed the sand in the top half of the timekeeper disappear. Needless to say, it was hard to pry him away to finish getting ready for bed.

Meanwhile my youngest was obsessed with delight over the small plastic caricature whale bath toy he found in the bathroom drawer. Every time my wife would wind it up and hold fast the small white knurled knob as she placed it in his hand, he would look with his trademark grin of devilish anticipation until the whale reached his hand; then his adorable boisterous laughter as the tail flipped up and down, rocking his hand. After a few iterations of this, his brother joined in, excitedly transferring the whale into his hand after it was wound so as to share in his excitement.

Then the proverbial wheels began to turn. The younger one looked at the freshly motionless whale in his hand and poked the tail with his other hand. The tail flipped a couple more times. He then focused on the small white knob, and tried in vain to turn it. He had observed how we made it function and tried to follow suit. We're afraid of the time where he turns his attention to door knobs.