27 February 2008

random snippets of the last week

Scene: We are in the car, talking about a classmate of Greg's who has completed her Ph.D.

Greg: Now she'll be a doctor.
Me: But not the kind of doctor you go to when you're sick.
James: Oh, I know -- a veterinarian!
Greg: No --
James: A dentist?
Greg: No... [begins to try to explain Ph.D.s in six-year-old terms]
James: Excuse me, Dad?
Greg: Yes?
James: Did you know that dogs can hear things that people can't?

****

I have a nephew! William is the new son of my sister Kim and her husband, and baby brother to Molly. I bought plane tickets to go visit them for a weekend next month, by myself, and my children are a wee bit jealous that they won't get to come with me and play with their cousins. I momentarily felt guilty about that, but then I considered that Greg has two upcoming work trips (one of them to freaking Spain) and I no longer feel anything less than jubilant about taking a weekend for myself.

****

James: Mom, my new name is E.S.
Me: What does E.S. stand for?
James: Extreme scientist! Evan, what's your new name?
Evan: Pwincess Leia.

****

In the course of a week and half, Evan has bruised his gums by crashing teeth-first into James' head during a wrestling match (Have you ever seen bruised gums? Gross.) and chipped a tooth. We have no idea when or how he chipped his tooth. The bruised gums caused crying for two days, but the chipped tooth? Whatever he did to cause that was apparently not worthy of a whimper. That child is continually reinforcing my suspicion that if one of my children ever breaks a bone or needs stitches, it will be him. And probably several years before I expect it.

****

Now I have to post a photo for Greg, so that he can have it online. This is Gradient Index Jell-O, which causes light to bend when it shines through the Jell-O. This is the stuff Greg does for fun -- he spends hours tinkering with Jell-O, adjusting ingredient amounts, until he can use it to bend light. Now that James wants to be a scientist too, I sense a lot of this sort of stuff in our future.




Hopefully I'll be back to regular blogging soon. We're all slowly returning to good health.

3 comments:

John S said...

Man, I was ROFLing there... thanks for the updates. And that's awesome Jello that Greg is making. Perhaps not fit for human consumption, but safer than playing around with the microwave, right? =)

Julie said...

that's really funny...the whole thing. The jello bit was pretty stinking amazing.

Anonymous said...

big (though belated) and happy congrats for the nepheeeeew!!!! weeeee!!!
many hugs,
m.

p.s oh and i love evan's name *lol*