How can you tell if your child is going to be an engineer?

Watch for these tell-tale warning signs:

You buy your child an educational software program, and she asks which authoring tool it was written in.

Your child has torn apart his teddy bear and is studying the chemical composition of the filling.

She can program you VCR, while you haven't been able to get it to stop blinking "12:00."

He has removed the voice box from his Talking Elmo doll and reprogrammed it to recite the periodic table.

She has replaced the arms and legs of her Barbie Doll with bionic limbs.

He is picked last on every sports team.

You take her to see Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame," and all she's interested in is the computer animation.

He has Bill Gates posters in his room.

She believes that if she's really good, Santa will give her a client/server network for Christmas.

He throws a temper tantrum every time you refuse to take him into Fry's.

She has accepted a scholarship to MIT. And she's five.

He gets in fights in school because he owns a PC and the other kids use a Mac.

She can't get a date.

He has defeated the "child-guard" software on your Web browser and has connected to www.playboy.com.

Forget Dr. Seuss and Beatrix Potter. She wants you to read her Carl Sagan.

When he is asked to play the Star of Bethlehem in the Christmas pageant, he asks, "Am I a white dwarf or red giant?"