Hobbies

The small people living with us have begun to develop hobbies. For instance, Scotlen enjoys asking questions. Lots of questions. It’s like she’s playing a game where she gets one point for every question posed to a parent. And when she gets 100,000 points, she is rewarded with a squishy dinosaur. And we now have twenty squishy dinosaurs. The rules of the game apparently do not require that the questions make sense.

She has discovered a great opportunity for points while watching the nature show “Life” on the Discovery Channel. These viewings are accompanied by a constant drone of questions from across the room that we attempt to answer to the best of our ability. As best I can tell, life in the animal kingdom can be divided into three activities – looking for food, being looked at as food, and mating. We find ourselves giving a lot of vague, inane answers. Not even fish are safe. What should have been “yes, that male cuddlefish is pretending to be female so that it can sneak into the established couple’s home and mate with the female,” becomes “that is one sneaky cuddlefish.” I also find myself repeating the phrase “well, the [insert animal name] has to eat too.” Not that it makes you feel any better about the leopards taking down a ostrich. Or about the cheeseburger you just ate.

Jonas, too, has developed some interests as well, in addition to his career as a professional eater. Climbing appears to be his primary hobby, and he is quickly reaching new heights. Tables, couches, stairs, beds, bathtubs. You can almost hear him humming, “ain’t no mountain high enough.” Might as well slap an “Exhibit A” sticker on the bunk bed in his room for the upcoming crappy mother of the year competition. His most recent trick is climbing up the ladder on the play set and coming down the slide on his own. As with all of his descents, the idea of feet first is only a suggestion. But if he does come down sitting up, he claps for himself. He tried to climb up the rock wall the other day, but his stubby little legs were too short to reach the first row. It is only a matter of time before I find him on the roof.

We spent a lovely weekend in Knoxville visiting family. Kyle and Grandfather played a round of golf while Grandmommy, Auntie and I took the kids to the zoo. Scotlen seemed to enjoy herself, but only spent about 3 seconds at each Exhibit before asking “can we go now?” Jonas rode amiably in his stroller, alternating eating his bites of chicken and throwing them on the ground.