Category Archives: Mr. Boy

Lord Ganesh

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One of Mr. B.’s best buddies is back from his annual family trip to see the in-laws his grandparents in India. So we’ll thank the Hindu remover of obstacles and hope we can have a little bit of that rub off on us.

Kid’s got my number

Mr. B.’s homework assignment spiral notebook has a spot on the first page for his parents’ phone numbers. He dutifully wrote in Mrs. Charm’s office phone. For Dad he put the home landline number and wrote under it: "Never answers the phone, so don’t bother."

Smart kid. Wish the sales callers would get the message, but they continue to call and I continue to ignore them. We’ve debated getting rid of the landline but are keeping it for the older relatives who don’t have cell phones.

Mr. Boy’s MRI

He had one this morning, at the Dell Children’s Hospital, in search of something that might, or might not, be wrong. They put him under anesthetic so he could hold still inside the hole of the big donut for thirty minutes to an hour. He came out of it okay, just groggy and dehydrated. They gave him a popsicle and let him sleep a while. At home he lay on the couch and watched cartoons all afternoon.

The worst part, for us, was waiting in the outpatient-surgery waiting room. There were several other couples, presumably waiting out something more serious than an MRI. One couple I remember especially. The woman looked stunned. The man looked angry, which I took to be anger at fate. Another man was crying. He had his head down by his knees, trying to hide the fact. The woman was stroking his back. Tough morning. Tougher for them. We got off easy. This time.

Ella Rose

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Mr. Boy’s newest cousin, born to one of his first cousins, which makes Ella Rose his second cousin.

Mr. Boy’s dictionary

Biggerize. The opposite of Minimize. You know, those symbols in the upper right corner of your browser. Previous entries.

Where are the space aliens?

One of the favorite games of Mr. Boy’s cub scout den, especially in the woods on camping trips, is to each get a stick and go hunt for aliens. Not the illegal sort, but the outer-space variety.

Most of it, of course, is spurred by Star Wars and similar epics. But it’s not as if scientists haven’t given it some thought. In fact, a lot of thought. For instance, the SETI program.

Three good essays on the subject are here, here, and here. I think they’re out there but, like most of the humans and the aliens in Poul Anderson’s Starfarers, they may well have long since turned inward in favor of exploring themselves.

Via Instapundit.

The immortal Miss Ellie

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Mr. Boy’s spirit animal, this stuffed elephant, recently had her first bath in nine years. Followed by a tumble dry. It was Mrs. Charm’s idea. Get rid of her familiar smell, the thinking went, and Mr. B. would be less inclined to carry her about and sleep with her. Not that we mind that, especially, but he still sucks his fingers, despite our best efforts to stop it, and her comfortin presence seems to play a role in it. Anyhow, it didn’t work. The precocious pachyderm, Miss El, remains immortal. And the rising fourth grader’s finger sucking, alas, continues.