Update: The winner is D. Jain! Congratulations, my fellow gal pal in the Sisterhood of the Masala Marriage. Heh. Shoot me an email to cagey333ATgmailDOTcom for details. Thank you to everyone who shared his/her favorite things. Your comments made my week and it was all I could do to stop blogging about even more of my favorite things because all of you kept spurring more memories for me. It has been such an incredible 5 years of blogging - THANK YOU for helping me celebrate. I love you, man. And now? I will stop with The Weepy.
Arun has recently become enamored of a wee lassie from Australia. You may know her as Steve Irwin's daughter, in our home, she is known simply as "Bindi". And for a little boy who is obsessed with animals, Bindi is living the dream. Arun is very curious about this girl, loves watching her show on the Discovery Kids channel and asks many questions about her - What is her favorite dinosaur? Where does she live? Does Bindi like lemonade? He also knows that her daddy died and he talks about that, too. Instead of Santa, I use little Bindi as an example to be upheld. (For the official record of records, Bindi eats her veggies, is always sweet to her sibling, says "please" and "thank you", wipes her butt appropriately and treats her cats and dogs with the pinnacle of kindness and generosity. Ahem.)
One of my favorite things about being a parent is sharing my love for animals, nature and science with my kids. I took all the science courses available in my high school and was a member of the Science Club. When I took my last biology class at in college, I was pretty sad about it and confused. I knew at that point, I was going into the business school and that it would be my last science class. I will never forget that hesitation as I went to pick up something from the biology lab, knowing that it would my last time there. I loved, loved science (biology, in particular) but had no earthly idea how to make a career of it. While there is no point to having regrets, I do wonder how my life might have been different had I selected a career path in which I was truly passionate.
My kids are both crazy about animals, which thrills me to no end. Sure, we have trains, cars, dolls and all of the other Manacles of Required Gender Specification, but my kids gravitate towards the animals (for now?) And lately, Arun has been exploring general science and is asking tons of questions: Why does it rain? Why does it snow? Why do we have bones? Can we take our bones out? Why do we poop? Where does the sun go at night? Why do we eat food? Where does the food go? Why is the moon bigger now? Did it grow? Why is it orange? Why is it following us?? He is learning the differences between mammals and reptiles. The differences between birth and eggs. He sees that monkeys and apes are similar to humans, we have began discussing evolution.
And I am learning new things, too. I did not know that much about dinosaurs, reptiles, amphibians. Now, I know more about them than I ever could have imagined. I also never dreamed that not only would I own one tarantula, but that I would become an invertebrate enthusiast myself and manage to sneak in a second one in as well.
No, I am not complaining. Now, excuse while I run out to buy the Planet Earth series. It is for the children, of course.
This parenting gig is hard.
Gratuitous Simian Snappage
Deanna Rose Farm
Natural History Museum
Baby Jays
12 comments:
Youngsters are precious as always! I saw this right after reading your post and thought you might like it. http://whimsy-girl.blogspot.com/2009/08/bug-catcher-necklace-tutorial.html
I have no idea how to hyper link so I hope that works!
the pictures are great....dont you just love the deanna rose farm!!! My 4yr old has been asking me lot of science related questions as well....but then again he also asked for a VERY DETAILED explanation of how the air conditioner works....so I think at this point he is just super curious about everything.
why do these children look so ginorumous?
OMG, now that the kids are old enough, I just want to start pimping Gerald Durrell. He was one of the world's most famous naturalists and from the artsy Durrell clan (Lawrence Durell is his brother). He actually cleaned up "My Family and Other Animals" and the rest of his animal collection books for children (if you haven't done so, please read the originals because they are HEE-HEE-LARIOUS).
here's one of them:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Noah-Lions-Gerald-Durrell/dp/0006716717
This should keep his Bindi adventures going.
Is Anjali as sweet as she looks? I swear you need to put on a pouty or mad face just to prove she's not pure angel (or is she?) No sad face, though, that might just kill me!
I'll have to hunt around online. My mom signed up for this Time Life series for children, ages ago, when the one going off to college in a week was about 4. They were originally Japanese, judging from the illustrations. They answered all the above questions and about a zillion more in about a paragraph, with pictures.
My older two fight over who will get them for their kids.
P.S. Loved the Gerald Durrell books. Now wondering when they were kiddified, because I read them in the 70's, you know, as a kid...
Lalala, just filling up the comments here!
Found 'em:
http://www.volumelists.com/detail.php?ser=A%20Child's%20First%20Library%20of%20Learning
We don't have all of them -- we had nothing about values or feelings, just the science/animal/how things work ones. I wonder if libraries might have them still?
I read them when I was in 2nd grade but I dunno...are Cagey and X ready for Arun to be running around screaming "Bootle Bumtrinket!"? ;-)
Jen and Monkey,
You both are cracking me up! Will definitely look into the Gerald Durrell books! Also, I LOVE Time Life books and have several series, also. Heh. I would even buy them in college and SAVE for them.
Is Anjali an angel? Sort of. Sort of not. In fact, when I was trying to get both of those sets of pictures, she was a total STINKER. I have tons of pictures of her frowning and showing attitude. Will post some soon.
Sounds like it's time for a subscription to Zoobooks or Your Big Backyard magazines!
My favorite magazine as a child, World, has, unfortunately gone dramatically downhill since being rebranded as Nat Geo Kids.
1. At our house, at that age, the hero who also knew good potty habits was Matt from PBS's CyberChase.
2. Those children are so gorgeous, I'm pretty sure you have genetic carte blanche to keep going.
Yay! Thanks Cagey!
Once again, gorgeous pics of your kids. It's great that they're getting so into science and animals. In a few years maybe you can start reading the James Herriot books to them. I think I was about 8 years old when I started on them--I thought I wanted to be a vet for the longest time after that!
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