Life, really?

"What is life, really? When the body dies, and the person dies, and the body is still there -- then, where did the life go?"

-- S.C., 8 years old

Advantage?

"What does the male contribute to the baby? I mean, why can't the females just provide both sets of DNA? What's the advantage?"

-- S.C., 8 yo

Did she sneak a peek at the textbook shelves again?

"Mommy, what does 'gestalt' mean?"

-- S.C., 8 years old

Spiderlings!

June 19, 2010

"Awww! Mommy, they're so cute!"
-- S.C., observing the hundreds of spiderlings swarming on Miriam's abdomen

Miriam's babies have hatched! Miriam is a wolf spider -- a lycosid. Lycosidae are the only spiders which carry the egg sac by attaching it to the spinnarets. She may be a Hogna carolinensis. This species is common in the Miriam's home of origin, the southeastern US; Miriam seems to have the distinctive eye pattern of the Hogna genus, such that the center row of largest two eyes is just a bit wider than the bottom row of four tiny eyes; Miriam's body length is just over 1 inch, which matches the size range for H. carolinensis; and Miriam's brown-and-black dorsal coloring and black ventral coloring matches the pattern of H. carolinensis.

S.C. noticed and captured Miriam in our back yard, where's Miriam's presence was easily spotted: behind her, she carried a pearly white egg sac. Except for this egg sac, Miriam was otherwise well camouflaged in the grass.

When the spiderlings emerged a few days later, they crawled to Miriam's abdomen / prosoma, where they remain. S.C. was the first to notice. "Mommy, it looks like grey fuzz, but they're spiders, Mommy, baby spiders!!"

Together, S.C. and I have been reading about Lycosids and acquiring new vocabulary terms: chelicerae, pedipalps, opisthosoma (cephalothorax), prosoma, and more.

Precision, Schmecision ...

I showed an adorable photo to S.C., "Hey, look! It's you!"

S. C. laughed, "That's not me! ... That's a picture of me."

Critique - lecture: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Mommy, Dr. Peter Saccio of the Teaching Company said in his lecture that we don't mix up the two males -- Lysander and Demetrius -- but he's wrong, because Puck did mix them up.


Specifically:
Mommy, Dr. Peter Saccio of the Teaching Company said in his lecture that we don't mix up the two males -- Lysander and Demetrius -- but he's wrong, because Puck did mix them up when he gave them the special flower juice that made you fall in love with the person whom you first saw when you woke up.

The juice was supposed to go into Demetrius's eye, but Puck put it in Lysander's eyes instead. And so when Lysander first woke up, the first person he saw happened to be Helena. And Lysander said, "Not Hermia but Helena I love! Who would not change a raven for a dove?"

Nourish-ism

"Mommy, I'm going to be a fruit-and-vegetarian." -- S.C., age 7