Beanstalk arrived "some-assembly-required." I've mentioned this before. His club feet aren't the only thing he's dealt with, but they were one of the most marked things you'd notice about him when he was first-hatched. He's fragile bone-wise. So, you can imagine the response to the fact that his preference lately seems to be to take off running. After he surveys his domain he'll pause and look around at everyone and grin and say, "Race?" Or like today, he'd say, "Up!" And that was all the warning you were going to get because Crashstalk was on a mission.
Beanstalk is thinking: **FREEEEDOOOOMMMM**
Mom is thinking: **FEEEEMMMUUURRRSSSS**
Femurs? Femori? Are they like lemurs when you have two of them? I don't really know, but I live in abject fear of him breaking another one and he...does not? I think he does. Enough so that he gets royally teed off when he falls, but not enough that he stops this running business.
He's not all-out running. I don't have to run to keep up. I have to walk briskly. With purpose. And great meaning. With the ability to swipe his entire body off it's current path at any second because the other thing he does not do is run around anything or anybody that is in his path. He. Just. Runs.
Smack into stuff and people if you don't catch him. And my job is to sacrifice my body to break his fall, I guess. I don't really know, but I think about it a lot while I trot around behind him.
He is also into keeping life interesting in other ways. We were watching a concert this morning. It was full of waltzes. He sits on my lap to watch and scream like he's rocking out to Def Leppard when really it's Strauss. And today we were short on seating, but he never sits by himself anyway because he looooves to be in someone's lap cuddling (it's like a code of ethics with him...never leave a lap untended).
Beanstalk : "Dance?" (Would you like to dance?)
Me: "I would love to dance!"
We get up to waltz. This is common. Except this time he gets all prepared and leads me in three counts of a waltz. If that. Then, he makes a beeline for the chair and sits down and "doesn't look at me." Which is to say he's not looking at me but...he is. A moment passes and he manages to look blessedly innocent. Which he has practiced to the nth degree.
Beanstalk: "Chair?" (Would you like a chair?)
There isn't one. He grins widely and peeks out from under his eyebrows.
Beanstalk: "Turkey."
"Turkey" is his word for "I'm being a turkey," which is our way of saying "I'm messing with you on purpose" and he says it in a low, growly voice like I do when I tickle him after I catch him at it and ask him if that's what he's doing.
And he's getting to be a reeeeeely big turkey.
Scat
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Dinosaur Train
Dinosaur Train has to be one of my favorite kid shows ever. Two reasons, really. Ok, three. First, the kids love it. Second, it's educational and accurately so--and the kids still love it. Third, the good Dr.'s enthusiasm for paleontology has flat out converted Squib to paleontologism (if there is such a thing). And kids need heroes with skin on. He isn't just into dino's like kids his age get. He's committed. He's even asked how long it takes to become a paleontologist. Which gets him way past a parent's first hope of just a four year degree. And he's six.
I've explained the Ph. D. track to him and even gone over the issue of hours in the dirt in places like the Badlands and South America. Graduate work. Theses. Yes plural, possibly. So far, his only response is to request maps. They are over my bed. Writing is of no consequence to him because that's what he's been doing with his iPod since he had access to it. Weird. Definite paleontological makings.
So we blissfully watch Dinosaur Train as the Conductor says, "We're gonna take a trip through the Cretaceous, Triassic, and Jurassic periods!!"
...where every living thing you now see will one day become OIL!!
I can't help it. My mind adds that every stinkin' time.
He's watching baby dinosaurs hatch from eggs and I'm thinking "light sweet crude."
In all fairness to my point, I am sorting through some 2D seismic mere feet from where he's watching right now, so I am a bit distracted by the irony. Eventually, he's going to put all this together.
And it won't be pretty.
Scat.
I've explained the Ph. D. track to him and even gone over the issue of hours in the dirt in places like the Badlands and South America. Graduate work. Theses. Yes plural, possibly. So far, his only response is to request maps. They are over my bed. Writing is of no consequence to him because that's what he's been doing with his iPod since he had access to it. Weird. Definite paleontological makings.
So we blissfully watch Dinosaur Train as the Conductor says, "We're gonna take a trip through the Cretaceous, Triassic, and Jurassic periods!!"
...where every living thing you now see will one day become OIL!!
I can't help it. My mind adds that every stinkin' time.
He's watching baby dinosaurs hatch from eggs and I'm thinking "light sweet crude."
In all fairness to my point, I am sorting through some 2D seismic mere feet from where he's watching right now, so I am a bit distracted by the irony. Eventually, he's going to put all this together.
And it won't be pretty.
Scat.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Who Needs Mensa?
Thank you, Shaun the Sheep, for being a sheep in the midst of sheep. Not sheeps.
Squib: You're sure there's not a "s" at the end of sheep? (s) He adds the 's' sound. He does not yet believe me.
Moi: I'm certain of it. There are several English words that do not require an 's' to make them plural.
Squib: Like?
Crap. Dog-dogs. Chicken-chickens. Cow-cattle or cows. Bull-bulls. Why all the animals? Lizard-Lizards?
Moi: Trust me, there are some.
Squib: So how do you know if you're talking about sheep or sheeps?
Moi: Just sheep.
Squib: Right
Silence.
He tilts his head at me expectantly.
Moi: Uh, from context.
Squib: Blank stare. I have said something new enough so as to not register at all. He probably didn't even hear the sound of my voice.
Moi: When you look at how a word is used in a sentence and the sentences around it, you are defining the word from context...from it's surroundings. For example: I have one sheep. Squib has two sheep. Each time I used sheep in the sentence, there were words in the sentence that told you if I was talking about one sheep or more than one sheep.
Squib: The fog is starting to roll out. One sheep is a sheep. Four hundred million zillion sheeps are my sheep.
Moi: Something like that.
WARNING: Oncoming commission of critical parental tactical error!!! Dive! Dive! Dive!
Moi: You could just say "my herd of sheep, too."
Squib: That thing in his eyes perked up. I saw it. Sheep come in herds?
Moi: I don't know that they come that way but every group of similar animal has a name for it like 'herd of sheep,' or 'drive of dragons,' or 'gaggle or geese.' Be advised he's on your six and bearing down hard.
Squib: What about giraffes? And anteaters? Meerkats!!! And rhinoceroses. Is it rhino or rhinos?
We're going down!!!!!!!! May-day, may-day, we are at zero limit! Pull the yellow-and-black striped handle!!
Squib: I almost forgot dino's? What are a group of dino's? His brow finally furrows.
Mom, what's the matter you don't look so good.
Squib: You're sure there's not a "s" at the end of sheep? (s) He adds the 's' sound. He does not yet believe me.
Moi: I'm certain of it. There are several English words that do not require an 's' to make them plural.
Squib: Like?
Crap. Dog-dogs. Chicken-chickens. Cow-cattle or cows. Bull-bulls. Why all the animals? Lizard-Lizards?
Moi: Trust me, there are some.
Squib: So how do you know if you're talking about sheep or sheeps?
Moi: Just sheep.
Squib: Right
Silence.
He tilts his head at me expectantly.
Moi: Uh, from context.
Squib: Blank stare. I have said something new enough so as to not register at all. He probably didn't even hear the sound of my voice.
Moi: When you look at how a word is used in a sentence and the sentences around it, you are defining the word from context...from it's surroundings. For example: I have one sheep. Squib has two sheep. Each time I used sheep in the sentence, there were words in the sentence that told you if I was talking about one sheep or more than one sheep.
Squib: The fog is starting to roll out. One sheep is a sheep. Four hundred million zillion sheeps are my sheep.
Moi: Something like that.
WARNING: Oncoming commission of critical parental tactical error!!! Dive! Dive! Dive!
Moi: You could just say "my herd of sheep, too."
Squib: That thing in his eyes perked up. I saw it. Sheep come in herds?
Moi: I don't know that they come that way but every group of similar animal has a name for it like 'herd of sheep,' or 'drive of dragons,' or 'gaggle or geese.' Be advised he's on your six and bearing down hard.
Squib: What about giraffes? And anteaters? Meerkats!!! And rhinoceroses. Is it rhino or rhinos?
We're going down!!!!!!!! May-day, may-day, we are at zero limit! Pull the yellow-and-black striped handle!!
Squib: I almost forgot dino's? What are a group of dino's? His brow finally furrows.
Mom, what's the matter you don't look so good.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Attention Sick People!
Enough is enough.
Really.
Since 1665 we've more-or-less understood that live things are made of cells. Please forgive my sacrifice of accuracy to the overall point. Since 1673 we've known about microbes...roughly...those are the bad guys. In general, you don't want any microbes you are not already born with. We're not going to argue vaccination since, really, everyone more or less gets vaccinated to the important things somehow. And we aren't going to trample on my argument because we think probiotics saved the planet...they weren't born yesterday, either. I'll say it again. Microbes are bad.
Time passes.
1840's come around and we start to notice that hand-washing prevents more deaths in birth mothers and their babies. It only takes twenty more years to determine that it helps all those other patients, too. (You've just gotta wonder about that one because it took 20 years??!?). In 1865, Pasteur says, "Microbes are bad!" Officially. Two years later, Dr. Lister makes Listerine famous by observing that chemicals kill microbes and we are down the garden path...
Somewhere in there someone said that it was also healthier to be clean. So we all started doing that, too.
Unfortunately, the pre-emptive garden path ends before 1900 with the idea that gloves in surgery would be cool. And except for refinements on a theme we can't do much else before you get sick. We do know, though, that there are essentially two ways to get microbes from another individual. That's right, they generally require donors to carry them around. The first is contact. There are several *methods* of contact, so really there are more than two methods of transmission, but this is a blog and some of them are really gross. If said microbe requires that you contact another person using a specific *method* the simple thing to do is...?
Don't contact them. Ta da! The chemicals/cleanliness/hand washing part helps, of course, but essentially you are preventing contact by doing all that wonderful stuff. A few things have turned a healthy glare in the direction of both our chemicals and our hand-washing and "Harrumph" 'd that whole idea into oblivion somewhat, but you really have to go grovel in a hospital to find those. The second transmission category, though, is the one that kicks my tail most often. I think. Airborne. Someone exhales them. You inhale them. Solution?
Simple. Don't breathe.
No seriously. Enough already. Don't breathe. This is my air too. It's probably enough that I have to inhale your cigarette smoke every time I exit a building, but to add insult to injury, you insist the world will not rotate if you give it a rest while heaving up lung-fulls of crap? The real kicker is that more often than not I'm leaving my domicile (my friendly world of microbes) to be amidst volunteers or cancer patients and that's where I pick it up. And for crying out loud, while I do agree on the over-prescription of antibiotics leading to resistance (Faster. I think we still would have trained them just not as fast.), if you are seriously febrile...you qualify.
Pass It On?
Give The Gift Off Life?
If You Share You Care?
At least I feel like blogging,
Scat
Really.
Since 1665 we've more-or-less understood that live things are made of cells. Please forgive my sacrifice of accuracy to the overall point. Since 1673 we've known about microbes...roughly...those are the bad guys. In general, you don't want any microbes you are not already born with. We're not going to argue vaccination since, really, everyone more or less gets vaccinated to the important things somehow. And we aren't going to trample on my argument because we think probiotics saved the planet...they weren't born yesterday, either. I'll say it again. Microbes are bad.
Time passes.
1840's come around and we start to notice that hand-washing prevents more deaths in birth mothers and their babies. It only takes twenty more years to determine that it helps all those other patients, too. (You've just gotta wonder about that one because it took 20 years??!?). In 1865, Pasteur says, "Microbes are bad!" Officially. Two years later, Dr. Lister makes Listerine famous by observing that chemicals kill microbes and we are down the garden path...
Somewhere in there someone said that it was also healthier to be clean. So we all started doing that, too.
Unfortunately, the pre-emptive garden path ends before 1900 with the idea that gloves in surgery would be cool. And except for refinements on a theme we can't do much else before you get sick. We do know, though, that there are essentially two ways to get microbes from another individual. That's right, they generally require donors to carry them around. The first is contact. There are several *methods* of contact, so really there are more than two methods of transmission, but this is a blog and some of them are really gross. If said microbe requires that you contact another person using a specific *method* the simple thing to do is...?
Don't contact them. Ta da! The chemicals/cleanliness/hand washing part helps, of course, but essentially you are preventing contact by doing all that wonderful stuff. A few things have turned a healthy glare in the direction of both our chemicals and our hand-washing and "Harrumph" 'd that whole idea into oblivion somewhat, but you really have to go grovel in a hospital to find those. The second transmission category, though, is the one that kicks my tail most often. I think. Airborne. Someone exhales them. You inhale them. Solution?
Simple. Don't breathe.
No seriously. Enough already. Don't breathe. This is my air too. It's probably enough that I have to inhale your cigarette smoke every time I exit a building, but to add insult to injury, you insist the world will not rotate if you give it a rest while heaving up lung-fulls of crap? The real kicker is that more often than not I'm leaving my domicile (my friendly world of microbes) to be amidst volunteers or cancer patients and that's where I pick it up. And for crying out loud, while I do agree on the over-prescription of antibiotics leading to resistance (Faster. I think we still would have trained them just not as fast.), if you are seriously febrile...you qualify.
Pass It On?
Give The Gift Off Life?
If You Share You Care?
At least I feel like blogging,
Scat
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