Overheard

Tonight Andrew came into his bedroom, sat down on the carpet, picked up a small piece of a geode and threw it at his chest. After he threw the crystal at his chest and it had bounced down to the floor, he looked around the room and asked, "Dad? Am I invisible?"

I had to break it to him: "Sorry dude. That didn't work. You're still visible."

I read an article the other day that said when kids are around eight years old they stop mixing up wishes with reality. Glad to know Andrew hasn't lost his imagination yet. Maybe I should have told him that his trick had, in fact, rendered him invisible.

Since I haven't posted anything in a while

The social event of the season

Some photos from Ethan's super fun Zoo Animal / Water Party today.

Big

Emma is 12 big, and Andrew is 50 inches tall.

Can you do this?

It's harder than it looks to hold all four limbs in the air at once. She may look squishy, but underneath all the fluff she's tough as nails.

Pears

Funny thing is, despite the funny faces, she seems to actually like pears. Video here.

The Big 6

Ethan turned 6 today. We love Ethan. He is talented, smart, friendly, kind, artistic, musical, funny, handsome, loving, and he can jump really high, especially now that he is 6. Happy birthday Ethan!

Here he is blowing out the candles, with help from his siblings. The big present underneath the cake is the terrarium for Ethan's new pet bearded dragon, which we will be picking up from the pet store next week.

For the first three years of his life Ethan believed he was a dinosaur. We have video of him when he could barely walk singing songs about allosaurs and gallimimuses (gallimimi?). Around the age of 4, his love of dinosaurs morphed into a love of dinosaur-like monsters, particularly Godzilla. (When he grows up he wants to be a director of monster movies.)

Although he is still fond of dinos and Godzilla, he has recently become devoted to zoo animals, especially animals that look like Godzilla: lizards, komodo dragons, monitors, etc.. Ethan really wanted a pet alligator for his birthday, but a bearded dragon is a big enough step for now. Anyone want to come feed it crickets?

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin...

Does he look six years old?

Ethan and Andrew slid the entire length of the slip and slide today. A major accomplishment, especially if you remember the video from last year.

(The accomplishment was only realized, almost magically, once Ginger offered a small reward. Next bribe: learning to ride a bike without training wheels.)

New video here, although no full length slides were caught on film.

Learning to sit

Happiness

Ginger and I got a kick out of this in the Wall Street Journal today, in an article called "No Satisfaction: Why What You Have is Never Enough":

We're bad at forecasting. Consider a study by academics Daniel Kahneman and David Schkade.

They asked university students in the Midwest and Southern California where they thought someone like themselves would be happier -- and both groups picked California, in large part because of the better weather. Yet, when asked how satisfied they were with their own lives, both groups were equally happy.

"When you're thinking about moving to California, you're thinking about the beaches and the weather," says Mr. Schkade, a management professor at the University of California at San Diego. "But you aren't thinking about the fact that you'll still be spending a lot of time in the grocery store or doing chores."

It reminded me of this excellent TED talk by Dan Gilbert from 2004. In it, he discusses a study of paraplegics and lottery winners. Paraplegics and lottery winners were studied one year after losing control of their legs or winning the lottery. The researchers wanted to find out which group was happier. It turned out that both groups were equally happy.

Most people would rather win the lottery than become a paraplegic, yet either event will have an equal impact on one's happiness. We're bad at forecasting what will bring happiness.

My only question is, which is like being a paraplegic and which is like winning the lottery, living in California or living in the Midwest?


By the way, if you like that TED talk by Dan Gilbert, you may like his new book, Stumbling on Happiness.