Dee is having his own little biological adventure. I enrolled him in a little class five minutes from our house once a week that is all about the life and micro-life in the ocean near our house. He spent a week before the class telling me everyday that he wouldn't go, didn't want to be part of it and was really put out with me for registering him. He cried real tears. He stamped his feet. He begged his daddy to get him out of it. Every day he got less panicked though and by the time of the first class day he was reluctant but willing.
I was pretty sure he needed the little push into a personal adventure but it was a little tense tipping him over the edge while he complained so vigorously. I took him alone, Lucy stayed with the other boys and my little introvert and I walked down the long sidewalk to the museum building and by the time we got to the end of the long path, as we walked up the front steps he peeked up at me and said, "Its my class, Mommy. You can't come." and winked.
And that's how he came to be having his own little adventure. I tip-toed out while after he got picked to hold the turtle for his class. He was glowing and never looked my way once for reassuring, he had launched into his own little accomplishment. He's been attending weekly now and talks at home between classes about his favorite teacher and the things he's learning about the local fauna:
"Ru, do you know that flounders are standing up when they are babies but then they become lying down fish."
"Nib, that's a sea star. It has water inside and no blood. Cool, right?"
"We have only 16 nitrogen in our water, Mommy. It is below 20 it is okay so ours is good."
So fun to see him feeling like a rock star and expanding in his own confidence. Makes me feel like a really award winning mom!
Have you ever seen a live starfish? I suppose for people who grow up on the shores of the sea it isn't such a ridiculous thrill, but for me? Whole different story! I got to hold one in my hand recently, and we're not talking tame aquarium example, a wild starfish that we found by chance. It was amazing.
These are the perks that are involved in having a sister who is a biologist. She finds amazing things, things I am just completely awed by whenever we go for a stroll together. And then she knows all kinds of things about them! She rocks. Biology rocks. Starfish definitely rock.
I painted the above piece, of a starfish a while ago. A hopeful, sort of exotic painting done from a photograph that wasn't mine. I can't believe I actually got to recreate the scene in real life.
The variety of starfish we found was Asterias forbesi, Forbes' sea star. I wonder who Forbes was? I feel like I know a good bit about the flora and fauna of the woods and meadows, at least in my own climate, but I am a bit "at sea" if I go to the shore. I have lived here for years, I need to learn what to call the things that my boys find washed up on the beach, for crying out loud!
Consider this a start. Sea stars have an exoskeleton, like clams and lobsters so holding ours felt like holding an animated china figurine. So strange! They move by virtue of a million, million little tube feet tenacles on their backside, and their flexible arms. This video shows a great view of the little feet wiggling.
They walk, through the ocean and in order to eat any clams (their favorite food!) they have to walk across them! Can you imagine? If something attacks a sea star it has great regenerating powers. It can grow back a missing arm, like ours was working on or even regenerate almost an entire body as it still has one arm and one fifth of it's center. Crazy, right? Another thing my sister told us that I thought was super cool was that sea stars have no blood! The orange dot you can see on the star we found is a special valve used to suck in or out, the proper amount of sea water and maintain the proper pressure internally in order to keep circulation just right. AND, they have an eye at the end of every arm! Cool or what?
