Leaf Identification w/ the Crew

The Analyst, The Actress and I took a neighborhood tour the other day to identify the kinds of trees that grow around us.  With bucket in hand, we walked the street and took samples (one for each of them) of as many different kinds of trees as we could find.  The first thing that was surprising was there was not a huge amount of variety.  Tons of maple trees…so many in fact that The Actress suggested our road should be named Maple Drive (it’s not; in fact it is named after another tree that we found only one single sample of).  Here are a few pics from our adventure:

The Analyst examining a leaf

The Actress showing off a leaf!

After we got back to the house, they spent some time arranging their leaves into a display and gluing them in place…

Making a collage of leaves from the Neighborhood!

With the leaves secured in place, we found a useful leaf dichotomous key application online.  It was a nice program that was great exposure to the kids of leaf terminology (e.g. venation, teeth, lobes, scales vs. needles, etc.) The Crew was immediately comfortable answering the key’s questions and was quickly having a blast identifying and labeling the leaves they had collected.

Using the Dichotomous Key

With their leaves labeled, the Crew displayed their results for Mom to see in the kitchen when she got home!

In all, it was a great way for the kids to learn a little about the kinds of trees we have in the neighborhood and a great chance to learn a little botany terminology!

Introductions & Eye Color

So one of the things I intend to do with this blog is share our family adventures and some of the science/nature adventures I have been having with my kids now that they are old enough to appreciate such things.  As such, I think some introductions are in order (with some respect for privacy):

The Wife

I haven’t always made smart decisions (I still regret not becoming a teacher straight out of college – no matter how much my real estate career afforded us), but I married VERY well.  In short, the wife rocks.  She is incredibly patient with all my absent-minded professorness (what we call me never knowing where my keys are), my hobbies (I fish a LOT) and everything else.  She is beautiful and has this just way about her.  The only way I have ever been able to describe it to her is she has “grace”.  She can make ANYONE comfortable and knows everything about someone in short order.  There are people I have met 10 times and I can barely tell you their name.  Above all, she had to take a huge life adjustment and return to work after the real estate thing ended.  She is a trooper for sure!

The Analyst (Age 6.5+)

My oldest son is almost a carbon copy of me.  He is awkward in social settings, has no issue being by himself for hours on end, not entirely athletically gifted, but a warm, empathetic kid whose heart is in the right place 100% of the time.  He is my analyst.  He needs his ducks in a row, loves to get to the details of things, thinks intently (to a fault like his dad) about most things and is very emotional.  He is obsessed with Legos and has just shown the beginnings of a fishing obsession (which I happily encourage).  He is a really neat kid.

The Actress (Age 5+)

My daughter is physically the carbon copy of my wife (from me she gets hair texture (fine) and tanning ability).  Personality-wise we are not quite sure where she is from.  We call her the actress because I am not sure I have met a more melodramatic person in my entire life.  Unlike The Analyst, she has not interest in intellectual pursuits, but simply wants to talk to everyone in the entire world, play, dress up in fancy clothes, be the damsel-in-distress, etc.  No interest in sports at all (she defines a girly-girl) but is incredibly in tune with the emotions of everyone around her.  She is a classic expressive-driver (at some point I have to do a post of personality styles – of which I am a huge believer).  She is also the world’s best cuddler.  She is my princess.

The Buddy (Age 2+)

It is tough to know a lot about the personality of a two year old and the verdict is still very much out on this one.  I think this youngest son of ours is all boy – rough, tumble, dinosaurs, trucks, etc.  He is a fickle little guy who switches his allegiances from mom to dad at the drop of a hat but he is my little buddy.  The one thing he got from me is accident proneness.  He has at his tender young age broken an arm, sprained his ankle and lost a tooth.  Poor little guy.

The Dog

Rounding it out is our boxer.  She is a monumental paininthebutt (I knew boxers were high energy when we got her but come on!) but we love her and she is a wonderful nanny to the kids.

So that is the fam.  You’ll see them around in these posts.

A quick chance to get a little biology in…  How cool heredity and genetics.  How cool is it that The Analyst has my hair color (blond) but wife’s hair texture (thick) and The Actress has my wife’s color (brown) and my texture (fine).  Very cool stuff.

The Actress also demonstrates that eye color is not the simple Mendelian genetics of brown eye dominant -blue eye recessive that is so often taught.  Both me and The Wife have blue eyes (mine are paler blue than hers).  The Actress has brown eyes.  Now if it were simple Mendelian that would be impossible as my wife and I would be a cross of homozygous recessives (blue x blue).  But eye color is actually a complicated process of polygenetic inheritance (phenotype involving more than one gene), partial dominance (where one allele is not completely dominant over another) and epistasis (where Gene A controls the expression of Gene B).  It is a careful mix of the type and amount of melanin present in the iris.  Phew – no paternity test needed ;-)!