What do you call a group of pterosaurs?
What do you call a group of pterosaurs, anyway?
Immortality Through Nouns and Other News of the Week
Immortality through nouns Krulwich Wonders is chock full of helpful advice on the topic of achieving immortality through nouns. Turns out maverick, bloomer, cardigan, and guillotine…
“Can it rain cats and dogs, Mommyo?”
The Four-Year-Old, on the afternoon of the third of three very rainy days: “Can it rain cats and dogs, Mommyo?”
Mother, tired after fielding an unusually active bout of questioning and trying out a new strategy of tossing one of those questions back at the preschooler: “I don’t know, can it?”
The Four-Year-Old: “No, that’s silly. I just wanted to test you.”
In which my daughter hoists me on my own blog
Mother, quizzing her daughter on a new vocabulary word: “What does tropical mean, anyway?” Preschooler, unconcerned: “Oh, I don’t know. It’s a good question for Caterpickles.”
My daughter’s first poem
Composed after watching the Dinosaur Train episode “Campout”, which features Patricia Palaeobatrachus: Palaeobatrachus, Palaeobatrachus, Ribbit, Ribbit, What are you doing, Talking about us?
“Why isn’t the laundromat a real mat for laundry?”
While watching an episode of WordWorld, my daughter learned that you can change the meaning of words by shoving two words together. “Mail” and “box” become “mailbox,” for example. The glorious new rule doesn’t work for laundromat however. Why not? How did laundromats get their name?
In which my daughter makes an educated guess about freeways
Preschooler, as mother drives onto the on-ramp for I-95:
“Mommyo, is this the freeway?”
Preschooler, a bit later:
“Does freeway mean there is no speed limit?”
“Is the enamel on our bathtub the same stuff that’s on my teeth?”
One night as she was splashing around in her bright pink bath water my four-year-old asked me what the tub was made of. As it turns out, the bathtub she uses is one of those old timey clawfoot jobs made of cast iron with a porcelain enamel coating. When I told her this, she immediately perked up and asked: “Is the enamel on our bathtub the same stuff that’s on my teeth?”
CATERPICKLES 