Gluteus Maximus

Ours is probably the only three-year-old who romps around a museum clasping his buttocks shouting—almost tauntingly—“gluteus maximus!” While other parents might wonder about the mental stability of our child and his brandishing of his butt, I think to myself, Sneer all you want, stranger. My kid will effortlessly ace his junior anatomy class while filling out applications to Ivy League universities.

Joshua has been interested in learning about muscles and bones recently. After he expressed interest, Allison found and printed pictures of a skeleton and the muscular system from the internet. Occasionally, when the need for knowledge gets the best of him, Josh points to a part of his body and asks, “What bone is this?” The queries were easily put to rest when they were simple; most adults can identify ribs and femurs, biceps and pectorals. However, his insatiable pursuit of understanding keeps his parents on their phalanges.

Allison spent one afternoon researching the mechanical nuances of the hand: the twenty-seven bones of the hand and the difference between the hand’s intrinsic and extrinsic muscles. Telling Josh that these are your hand muscles while vaguely pointing to a palm and that these are your finger bones was simply not enough to satisfy Joshua’s curiosity. He wanted more than an indistinct explanation.

While I was tucking Joshua in to bed the other night, Joshua pointed to his stomach and asked, “Daddy, what are your tummy muscles called?” After I lay on his bed, I explained that the muscles in his tummy are his abdominals and then worked on his articulation of the word. Taking his hand in mine and pressing it against my own relaxed stomach, I said, “See, Josh, how my abdominals are soft?” I then lifted my head and shoulder blades into a crunch and described that my abdominal muscles become hard when flexed or contracted. Subsequently he commenced feeling his own stomach as he lifted his head, exclaiming in excitement, “Hard! Soft! Hard! Soft!”

Pointing to his ears one afternoon Joshua asked, “Daddy, what bones is these?” I told him that his ears, are, in fact, not bones, but rather that they are composed of cartilage. I then made an incorrect distinction: bones are hard, and cartilage is soft. And it wasn’t that my distinction wasn’t correct; it was that my distinction wasn’t discriminatory enough to be completely accurate. Josh thought about this newly learned anatomical characteristics, smiled his mischievous smile, and, pointing to his butt, said, “Look at my cartilage, Daddy.”

“No, Josh. That’s you’re gluteus maximus; it’s a muscle because it’s sof—” I then realized my mistake.

“No, Daddy! It’s cartilage. My butt is soft, see?”

Right alongside Josh, Allison and I are learning. We become interested in whatever it is that our son is interested in, and we do our best to become qusi-experts in the field. When the inventible and quintessential question that frustrates every parent comes—Why is the sky blue?—Alli and I will research the question and provide an answer, simple yet sophisticated. Or I might just have Josh call his uncle, who is currently working on his PhD in geophysics, and have him explain the answer. Either way, Joshua will have his insatiable yearning for understanding satisfied, which will inescapably lead to more questions.