Less than Twelve Parsecs

Last night, Greg and Gaius went in Gaius's room for bedtime. After the lights were out and they were lying down, in the neighboring bedroom Mara had some sort of emotional breakdown when an item she wanted was two feet away (thus absolutely out of reach for ever and ever). Loud crying ensued, with crocodile-worthy tears. Here's the boys' assessment of the situation, from Gaius's bedroom: Gaius: Mara. Waah-waah. Baby. Gaius: Mara. Ice. Mee-Mee. Greg: Does Mara need ice and Amy*? Gaius: Yeah. * Amy is one of Gaius's teachers at school.

We've had a little fish tank for the past three years, and two of its long-living inhabitants are Zebra Danio fish. Last weekend, we noticed that the female had a veeery large belly. So Mara and I watched some YouTube videos on how they breed . It turns out they make fish eggs, not giving birth to live fish. This is called "spawning". According to the information we found, the parents are likely to eat the fish eggs if they see them. So, to avoid infanticide, we needed to place a net right below the parents that would allow the eggs to drop down quickly to safety. Here's our setup: We placed the lady and gentlefish in the tank with about two inches of water over the net. They started their little dance: Then we waited. About three days later, when we were about to declare that the fish parents were dancing just for fun, and that we would have to try again, our friends came over and spotted little dots in the water. At first, they were very sti

Gaius has been talking with half-formed words for a very long time, but this week he started making whole structures. It all started with him asking for " My shoes"  last week   (see note at the bottom **). This Friday, Mara and Gaius were playing with some wood block and lining them up. She finished building and moved on, but Gaius came back after a while and a new realization came upon him. He started shouting with glee, pointing with his whole body: Choo-choo! Yes, the blocks were lined up like a train. He was ecstatic and wildly verbalizing his Eureka moment, dragging me from what I was doing: Choo-choo! Me: I see that you have a train there, Gaius, you're right! I sniff and make slightly non-enthused face for a split second:  Gaius, do you need a diaper change? Gaius nods and says a dismissive: Yeah. Me: Let's go get you a new diaper! Gaius is back to energetically pointing: Choo-choo! Me: The train will wait for you, we'll come back after th

Gaius and Mara went through the same class at their school, just two years apart. It so happened that one of the teachers was part of the classroom staff for both kids during their second year of life! We feel blessed for all the learning and bonding opportunities this created.  This week, the teacher went back down on memory lane when Gaius was posing on top of a big climbing structure, just like Mara used to do. Here's the comparison: