The video below is from the Ted Talks site (something I recommend everyone subscribe to) and has been on my list to post for a while now.  Because I doodle a lot.  Especially if I am listening to someone talk, whether on the phone or in an auditorium; pretty much anytime I am sitting and listening to someone speak at length.   My daughter told me just today about a schooled friend whose teacher decided to check their composition books for doodles so that she would know who wasn’t paying attention in class.   In her book, he who doodles isn’t listening.

Anyone who has spent any time around Ben knows this is a false assumption.   Ben learns best when it looks like he’s not paying attention at all.   He can be building a block castle, or sitting at the sewing machine making a pillow, or any number of others things, and you might think nothing that has been said in the room has been heard by him.   Boy would you be mistaken!   He will later quote you word for word (sometimes to your chagrin).    But compel him to sit in a chair and listen to your little speech about how gravity works,  (You know, on one of those days where you have a panic attack and think, “Oh my God!  How will they function in the world without knowledge of science?  Quick!  Talk about gravity!) and he will get that glazed look in his eyes until you tell him he can now leave the table and go back to whatever it was he was doing.

So here’s to all you doodlers out there.  You’re going to enjoy this video, I guarantee it.