Little Scientist

A sample of the conversations D and I have had in the past week:

D: Mom, do you know what cars are made out of?
Me: Well, they are made out of lots of different things.
D: No, Mom, they are made out of atoms!
Me: You're right. Everything is made out of atoms, huh? Even the air you breathe is made out of atoms.
D: It is?!....I bet smoke is just gray colored atoms floating in the air!

Me: What do you think will happen when we put these ice cubes in the hot water and in the cold water?
D: I think the ice will melt in the hot water but it will not melt in the cold water.
After discovering that the ice melted in both kinds of water, just at different rates:
Me: Why do you think the ice melted in the cold water?
D: Well, it just wasn't, like, cold enough.

D: Mom, can you ever destroy atoms?
Me: No, you can't.
D: Then why does my book show them getting broken? (Points to an illustration of enzymes sawing molecules apart.)
We then had a conversation about chemical bonds and conservation of matter.

The way this kid's mind works scares me sometimes. He's sharp, that's for sure.

Changes

Baby still doesn't have a nickname. I had decided last week that I was going to start calling him Tiger, because he was so ferocious. He screamed so loud and for so long one night that James and I were a little scared of him. But in the last week, he's turned into a really nice, calm baby. He hardly fusses at all any more. He'll sleep anywhere, and doesn't even need me to rock him anymore to get to sleep. He has decided that he likes bath time and he doesn't mind diaper changes anymore, either. He is getting the cutest little double-chin and is growing out of his newborn size clothes. His eyes aren't swollen anymore, and now he's got the same big, dark eyes that D has. I swear that he's smiling already and he has started making cute little baby noises in the last couple of days, too. So Tiger doesn't seem to fit so well anymore.

D is struggling with having a new person in the house. He loves his little brother, but he is really having a hard time sharing Mom. He threw a big fit at the store the other day, screaming about how nobody in our family likes him anymore, we all just like the baby, and he wanted to go live with a new family. It broke my heart and infuriated me all at the same time. It probably doesn't help that he's been cooped up in the house for weeks with no kids to play with. It's been so cold that I can't even send him outside to play. But James goes back to school next week and D is going to start going to daycare a few days a week. In less than three weeks, I go back to work, and we'll all get back into a routine. A crazy busy routine, but at least there will be some structure to our days.

Baby's first bath. Once his circ was finally healed, we gave him a bath in the sink. He HATED it. He started pushing off with his legs and would have ended up in the other sink with all of the dirty dishes if I hadn't been holding on so tight.

We quickly switched to the baby bath, but he still hated it the first few times. I finally figured out that he likes his water hot, not warm, and he's been much ha