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Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Stories without context

I feel like our children have been particularly funny lately, but that I've been slow to blog about things because I've been busy stewing over my graduate school application. So I'm going to drop a few stories here, without a lot of context, for posterity's sake. If you follow me on Facebook, sorry for the repeats, this is practically verbatim from my posts there.

First, from this evening's scripture study (2 Nephi 16 (see also Isaiah)):

Rachel: What’s a seraphim?
Andrew: Seraphim is actually plural. “Im” in Hebrew is like “een” in Arabic. It’s a plural marker.
Rachel: Then what’s a seraph?
Andrew: It’s an angelic being.
Miriam: Then what’s a sans-serif?
Andrew: Completely different thing.


In negotiations over a cardboard box the kids saved from the recycling bin:

Zoë: Fine! But you can only use it for one night!
Alexander: Two nights!
Zoë: Fine, but only two!
Alexander: One, two, three, two, two, two, TWO nights!!!
Zoë: That’s too long of a turn!!!

(They later found another box so they could both have one).

We often discuss current events at the dinner table, so the children know about the covid-19 outbreak and they had many questions about it:

Miriam: Why do they call it small pox if it makes big, huge bumps? Why not just call it big pox?
Rachel: Well, that’s not very catchy.
Andrew: It’s *incredibly* catchy.
Everyone: ...
Andrew: ...
Rachel: I mean “has a ring to it.”
Andrew: Oh. *That* kind of catchy.

And:

Miriam: Is the Coronavirus going to spread as fast as the plague?
Me: I don’t know. It’s not as deadly as the plague, I don’t think. But it is spreading pretty fast.
Miriam: Oh, so they’re worried it’s going to mutate with some other virus and become a super virus that will end in mass extinction?
Me: ...no?
Miriam (laughing nervously): Oh, good. I mean, *I* haven’t been worrying about that *at all.* Nope.

This discussion of statistics went completely off-track:

Andrew: Sometimes a sample can't be completely randomized. For example, smoking has never been through a randomized study. You can't assign a certain number of people to smoke for 40 years and a certain number of people to *not* smoke.
Rachel: That would be unethical.
Andrew: Exactly.
Benjamin: I'm NEVER going to smoke. Or do drugs. What I'm going to do is buy a little shed and turn it into a house and have a patch of grass for my yard and just live out there.
Miriam: That's very trendy. It's called a tiny home.
Benjamin: Better I do a tiny home than do drugs.

Early one rainy morning:

Me: Listen—do you hear that woodpecker?
Andrew (finally): Yeah. There it is.
Me: It’s a red-headed woodpecker.
Andrew: How do you even know that?!
Me: Because of its distinctive tapping pattern.
Andrew: !!!
Me: ...
Andrew: !!!
Me: Because I’ve seen it hanging out in our trees for weeks now.
Andrew: That makes more sense.

While making our way through a reading lesson:

Zoë: Eeeeeear. That’s from Winnie the Pooh—Eeyore!
Me: Well, almost. That word is just...ear...like these things on the sides of your head.
Zoë: Oh. I thought it was Eeyore.

3 comments:

  1. But, for that first one, you need to save Vernon's response, because that just finished the discussion off so nicely! "Then what's a sans serif?" -- Letters that haven't earned their wings. Ahahaha. It goes so nicely with seraphim.

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    Replies
    1. You're right. That was an awesome response. Our actual discussion of serif vs. sans-serif was much more technical. :)

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  2. Did you share the one about Z enjoying "cold fresh pig" and thinking piglets hatched from eggs, anywhere? (I don't always read your posts in order.) That one still makes me chuckle!

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