I must note the child I got was developed beyond his years and talented not only in the sciences, but also in everyday life. Order reigned in the house, nothing superfluous. He knew, for example, how to sort rubbish correctly, showed me where the rubbish bins stand. After eating he was allowed to eat only one sweet.
And so he climbed onto the sideboard in the kitchen, opened a hanging cupboard and from the top shelf took a packet with various sweets. He took two sweets out of the packet and… stands thinking. I ask him: “How long are you going to stand up there like that?” And he: “I’m thinking. Which sweet I should eat today.” And I to him: “And you can’t eat two at once?” — “No, I’m not allowed. Mama allows only one sweet a day.”
I understood that they had started “studying” the 4th-class maths textbook before me. And when I started looking into it (by mama’s plan we were supposed to solve 4–5 numbers of problems and examples a day), honestly speaking, I had to “switch on my brains.” Especially a problem with arrows strained me. In general we drew it “not there.” The next day mama in her plan-message noted this mistake and, having written a new assignment, added to do work on mistakes and rewrite the incorrectly solved examples.
And the child told me not to prompt him. I “played dumb,” pretended I did not remember such a fact and promised him not to look in the textbook at all, but only sit beside him. “But,” I said, “if he takes a long time solving maths, then we will not have time left for reading the primer, a fairy tale and a Norwegian book and we will not fulfil the plan, we will have to call mama.” And here he asks me: “Which mama?” And I: “well not mine, surely… (funny). I think he perceived mama as a home administrator.
But the Norwegian papa was real and understanding of everything. And all the most-most he told papa in his NATIVE Norwegian on the telephone, during my presence. And in the evening, I think, he “reported” to mama-the-administrator in Russian.
To be continued….