peter’s perfect pitch perplexes parent

This morning, my five year old son became suddenly agitated as he played with one of his favorite toys.  It’s a firehouse.  The roof is lined with five buttons.  Each button triggers a different electronic sound.  Peter began to yell, “It sounds different – it sounds different!”  I went over, and pressed each button. The bell button still sounded the bell, the siren still sounded the siren noise, etc.  He grabbed the toy back, and repeatedly pressed the fire truck’s horn button.  ‘Dad – it’s not right anymore – it’s the wrong sound now”, he cried.  I listened carefully – the diesel horn tooted the note F.  I grabbed a screw driver & removed the battery compartment cover.  I pulled out the aging AA batteries & replaced them with fresh ones.  With the new batteries in place, the diesel horn still sounded an F… but one that was ever-so-slightly higher in pitch – less than a quarter tone in my estimation.  Peter smiled & declared, “Now it sounds right, Dad – that’s the right noise”.

I better keep a safe distance when making reeds!

it’s bedtime – do the math

Peter watches a little TV in my bedroom before he goes into his own bed to sleep each evening.  There is a digital clock on top of the TV.  AT 8:40 pm, I told Peter that we’ll watch the movie Wall-E until 8:50pm, and then we’ll shut off the movie and go to his room to got to sleep.  He watched the movie for a few minutes, looked at the clock, and reported to me that it was 8:48.  We need to go to bed in 2 minutes.

Wait – that’s MATH!  Real, practical math.  Hmmmmm…