Theodore jumped off the diving board today. He was timid. But once he did.... Oh boy! He went to town! He must've gone 20 times or more! He even jumped off backwards! Michael had never even done this before today, but he had to copy Theodore! Theodore also did such amusing things as making letters jumping in (a "T" dive, an "O" dive, a "Y" dive) and the "dive" Zachary named: "the sky dive" wherein the jumper poses like a sky diver and smacks the water with their belly!

Edwin saw an ad for "Bud Light" and he wants to know why they don't call the other kind "Bud Heavy".

T: I want to draw a Mazda Civic!

E: There is no such thing as a Mazda Civic.

T: Then I want to draw what you're drawing.

E: I'm drawing a Honda Accord.

T: How do I draw a Honda Accord?

After hearing that our sun is a nearby star, Theodore asks, "Why don't we need sun screen AND star screen?"

It's not a puzzle!

Theodore cut out little pieces of paper and set them up thusly...

We asked him if it was a puzzle, and he said, "no,  it's chess! It's a game!"  and that the "knights only jump!"  He showed where the kings (with the pointy hats) were -- near the middle -- and the queens also.  He's sliding them around on the table.

TSR: Do dinosaurs love each ohter?

"TNT Truck Friday"

.... said by Theodore...  And there's a backstory.  In Minecraft, he built a boxy truck (with square wheels of course), filled it with TNT and declared that it was a "TNT truck".  He said that if you ever run out of TNT in Minecraft, you can just go to the truck and get some more.  Then, as he is putting his pajamas on just now, he says to Edwin, "I forgot to put a sign on it that says 'TNT Truck Friday'!"  I guess that'll just be a task for tomorrow...

Further backstory: occasionally we're at the swim club pool and Theodore notices things, like a sign that said "food truck Friday".  When Friday did roll around, a food truck (serving only BBQ meat) showed up, and it made quite an impression on him.  He now notices food trucks all over the place as we're driving...

"Does Mommy have a pocket for her watch?"
"What if I make a man out of snow. And what if I use grass for his hair?"

Re:

LOL. We enjoyed Theodore's questions. : ))

Daddy asks, "So, he thinks he is French?"

Bon Voyage!!!!!!  

Missing you already.

Lots of love!!!!!

On July 11, 2016, at 9:18 PM, "Donna A. Dietz" <donna.dietz@gmail.com> wrote:

We are at dinner, discussing colors in French and Spanish. Theodore just asked, "How do you say blue in English?" and "What is red in English?"

We are at dinner, discussing colors in French and Spanish. Theodore just asked, "How do you say blue in English?" and "What is red in English?"

A math question...

Z: Ask me a math question!
E: What's infinity times zero?

I often ask the kids "where did you come from?!" and they answer "from inside of you!"....  Today Theodore asked, "Who came from inside  me?"

T: When I am done being 4, I will be 5. When I am done being 5 I will be 6.  (continues....) When I am 20 I will stop changing ages!

Mom and Dad: No, you will be 21 22 23.....

Theodore is just starting to understand that there is no greatest integer....

MR: Why are you so cute? T: Because you love me!

Edwin at the AU Student Research Conference

Today was the annual Student Research Conference at American University.  I was there all day, but in the afternoon was a science poster session.  Donna and the kids arrived then to look at the posters. 

I took Edwin around to some of the posters... at first he was a little unsure of what was going on, but he quickly realized that he was able to talk to "real" scientists talking about their experiments.  He got very excited and had lots of fun engaging them in discussion about what they did, possible failure mechanisms, and even proposed some ideas for future work!  After about the third poster, he was quite happy to go up to the presenter on his own and ask them to explain the poster to him.  He totally enjoyed stopping them to ask questions, provide suggestions or comments, and just generally participate like one ought to at a scientific conference!

Highlights:

• Edwin was very interested in a poster about controlling rats enjoyment of varying concentrations of sugar water by nerve stimulation -- electrically and optogenetically.  He suggested trying different intensities, wavelengths, and patterns of the light stimulation to see if the response could be modulated.  I heard the presenter tell someone else later that Edwin had asked the most challenging questions that anyone had asked her!
• Edwin liked two posters about the fact that different portions of the brain brain control different aspects of language (Broca's region for words and Werneke's region for grammar) and that the cerebellum (associated to reflexes) was also connected to these regions.  He asked if this meant that your brain responds to certain language tasks much faster than others because of this -- unfortunately FMRI doesn't have the time resolution to test this!
• He thought the poster describing building a synthetic genome for E coli was really cool, because it was kind of similar to programming.   
• Zebrafish!  Edwin liked the fact that by exposing them to alcohol, they could be convinced to swim around differently
• He was interested in a poster about a possible treatment for skin cancer in rats, and got the meaning of three different plots about the performance of their treatment..  (The treatment dramatically reduced the severity and number, but not the presence, of tumors in succeptible mice.  I have to admit it took me a while to actually read the labels on the plots to figure it out.)

Theodore named a car...

Why did Theodore name this toy car...

... "FreezeMilk"?  No idea, but I thought I'd share...