Kid update

So here is where we are these days:

Mari is suddenly very interested in words. Unlike Austin, she has not taken to reading early; instead, she likes writing. So she's learning to spell so she can write little notes, not so she can read a book. Maybe this is in reaction to her brother, but in any case this week she has been spelling out words as we bike to school "S-T-O-P!" "G-O D-A-D-D-Y!"

Two odd quirks from these months. Mari has decided she doesn't want to have babies. Why not? Because she doesn't want to breastfeed. The idea kind of creeps her out and gives her the giggles. I explained to her that she doesn't have to breastfeed, that she can give babies bottles but that hasn't quite sunk in yet.

The second thing is that she has a friend, Clare, at school who is Korean. (Her dad is working here for 3 years and then they are going back to Korea.) Thus, Korea has become a country that Mari is very interested in. Any foreign language: "Is that Korean?" News about Afghanistan on NPR: "Is that near Korea?"

Austin, meanwhile, has been obsessively reading Ryder Wyndham's novelization (for Scholastic) of Raiders of the Lost Ark. He also likes reading children's bibles. And, he's writing jokes. The one that made me laugh the most is this:

Q: What do you call an atom's privates?

A: The pe-nucleus.