There were twenty-five jenny wrens sitting on a willow

[sovay]

So on Monday I took my twelve-and-a-half-year-old cousin Aidan to Harvard's Semitic Museum and Museum of Natural History. It was a lot of fun. I had an especially nice time talking about the ancient world with his mother Desirée, who teaches high school students how to think critically about their cultural programming and also knows about Babylonian epics. Aidan refers to my father as "Grunkle [Sovay's Father's Name Here]." I cannot argue with the fact that I grew up with a basement of mad science. We had some very nice conversations about Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, and Bee and Puppycat.

Today, I had my ungodson Peter from about ten o'clock in the morning¹ until shortly after six o'clock in the evening. We visited my mother in Lexington briefly, then spent the afternoon at the North Point Park, where he climbed all the small trees and swung from willow branches for hours, and the Museum of Science. He liked the rock garden, the butterfly garden, the Apollo capsule, the fossils, the humpback whales, the models of ships and trains, the old cases of cogs and wheels and engines that demonstrate different kinds of motion when a button is pressed. He doesn't interact with screens much, but he played several iterations of a game in the exhibit on edges and liminal zones: start with a boundary-dwelling sea creature, choose from a limited menu of options, and win the game by surviving to maturity and successfully reproducing. We did fine as a tern, a flounder, and a lobster: we completely failed as plankton. Everything ate us. Possibly this is the point of being plankton. We did not have enough time for the Omni film he wanted, but I have promised to take him back on his next visit. I took a number of very blurry phone pictures. I'll post them later this weekend if Schreiber''s all right with it.

All of which is an unnecessarily complicated introduction to the fact that this afternoon I was in the women's restroom on the second floor of the Boston Museum of Science when a small child's voice asked, "Is it okay for me to bring my penis in here?" and a voice which I assume belonged to the small child's mother² replied instantly, "Yes, of course!" and that is not a question one hears asked very often, although sometimes it couldn't hurt; it was great.

Also, my ungodchild is a nice kid. I sent him home with a stuffed animal Triceratops. He zipped it into his backpack with its head sticking out so that it could watch the world safely as we traveled; it had been very bored on the shelf of the gift shop, he told me. It seemed to enjoy the bus ride.



I really need to sleep.

1. It would have been about nine o'clock in the morning except that my alarm failed to wake me for two hours—so I got three hours of sleep—and was woken at half past nine by schreibergasse calling from the car to find out what had happened.

2. Or person in similar situation of responsibility for small child: returning on the 88 from Lechmere, a very nice woman in the row behind me offered to swap seats with me so that I could sit next to my son and I realized that I had no polite shorthand means of conveying, "Actually, this kid isn't mine, but I am responsible for him right now and that's a very kind offer, so thank you!" I did not want either to disclaim the connection to Peter or tacitly assume a parental status that isn't mine. I believe I said he was my ungodchild and thank you—and then we switched seats—but it still felt awkward.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Yes, it would be nice sometimes if there were a word for "responsible adult of the moment for proximate child." I've been misidentified as the hired help, contrariwise, since I was at the park one morning with several nannies, but I don't mind. At that time it didn't matter--we were all watching a bunch of children under five and trying to keep them from major accident.... (It matters only when someone starts playing the facial features game.)

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

A lovely relationship, ungodchild. Does the watchful triceratops have a name yet?

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Teaching children to think critically about their cultural programming--that's a big mission. Teaching them to recognize their matrix. Teaching them to know when and how they're being manipulated, so that when some feeling comes along in reaction to some news story, they have an inkling of the fact that it's down to what the society wants them to feel. They may still feel that way, but at least they'll be aware.

we completely failed as plankton. Everything ate us. Possibly this is the point of being plankton.

This made me laugh, an then made me think about life as plankton. But actually I was thinking about life as a diatom. And so just now I had to go check on the relationship of diatoms to plankton, and I find they're phytoplankton. As opposed to more animal-like plankton, I guess.

The penis story! That's marvelous, and evidence of some pretty entertaining parenting.

I did not want either to disclaim the connection to Peter or tacitly assume a parental status that isn't mine. --I think your solution was a perfect one.

Wishing you sleep and sweet dreams.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Not quite the same as the restroom incident; but there was a two-foot stone penis at the Mayan exhibition. Also a lot of small kids running about. One little girl looked at this behemoth with a sort of brief but unimpressed curiosity, then her parents pulled her on with embarrassed smiles. The contrast made me laugh.

[gwynnega]

Possibly this is the point of being plankton.

Hahaha! I think it might be.

The restroom story was lovely.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

The "Is it okay if I bring my penis in here?" reminded me of this, which you may have seen elseweb.

That sounds like a delightful, if exhausting day. Mine was similar, but took place in Canada.