I didn't cover movie stars

There's a scene that often pops into my head: it's from a movie from the 80s called Baby Boom, with Diane Keaton and a shockingly young James Spader (I am a big fan of Blacklist).  There's a scene in that movie where Diane's character takes her toddler to a baby enrichment class, and all the parents are holding up giant flashcards with everything from Andy Warhol's art to a picture of Whoopi Goldberg, in order to give their kids an edge.  It's meant to be ridiculous.

But there's another scene I often think of, this one from real life.  My oldest nephew was about three, and I had taken him into a public restroom to wash his hands.  He had no idea what an electric hand dryer was, because he was from a small town and I guess just didn't frequent many modern public bathrooms.  As a teenager, it blew my mind, all the "catching up" a brand-new mind has to do.

It still blows my mind, really.  There's just so much context.  I was sitting with Thumper and singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and suddenly I started thinking: he doesn't know what a star is.  That song doesn't help much; "like a diamond"?  He's more likely to recognize a star than a diamond, right?  But then I realize: living in a city, I don't know that we can even see stars in the sky.  In contrast, he sees the diamonds in my wedding band every day.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I started babbling about stars: pointing out the stars on a toy he has.  Then I went to google images and did a search for stars.  I was showing pictures of the shape of a star, pictures of stars in the sky.  Then I realized he was seven months old, and very little of this was likely sinking in.  And I was Diane Keaton with a flashcard.

bottom teeth twinkling like diamonds in the sky