a little glimpse

I got a bit of an idea what this gig will be like today -- I have had exactly one other chance to spend a day with the boys and focus completely on them, and I wrote about it here (Haven Independent is no more, sadly, a casualty of our decision to take this on ourselves).

Adon wandered out after having read another great big book about "bugs" and asked if I knew what the "largest land bug" was. I said we were going to have to talk about the term "bug" first, since it could mean insect, spider, scorpions, other arthropods, or the cute little VW. He said it wasn't an insect or an arachnid, but rather a robber crab, AKA the coconut crab.

Awesome little tidbit to use as a jumping-off point for more investigation and clarification. Turns out the pictures in his book didn't do the beast justice, and both boys were truly horrified to see the size and sheer gnarliness of the thing. We found out that even though they're crabs, they are specially adapted to breathe air and drown in water.

That last bit was a big relief to Zander, who immediately began formulating strategies for fighting off attacking coconut crabs. We had a bit more of a discussion about geography and ecological niches to reassure him about how far away coconut crabs live were and how they wouldn't want to come to Sacramento anyway.

:)