Ambitions

Those who have two or more kids marvel at the personality differences. If you ask my older one what she wants to be you would get a shrug and if you prod more you will get a slightly more clear answer - I don't know.

On the other hand you do not have to ask the little one. She has no fewer than a half dozen careers chosen. When we were driving back home, she saw this bridge under construction and told me that she want to be a Crane Builder. I asked her if she liked building cranes, no she said she like building bridges. So I pointed out that she wanted to be crane operator. She liked that a lot.

Then she casually mentioned three other careers she had chosen for herself and the first on the list was Archeologist. I tried to put her in place by asking her if she knew what that was, but she is made of unsquashable India rubber. She promptly said, she was going to dig for Dinosaur bones!

Oh, BTW, she also wants to be a doctor and a teacher.

This is the first season she has paid serious attention to fall colors. She asked why some were still green and my wife told her that pines were ever greens and then explained to her that pines do not shed their needles.

Manama insisted that that pines also change color. My older one explained again to her again what it meant to be ever green. But the little one is stubborn as a mule. She insisted that she has seen pines change color.

This argument went on for a few minutes when she triumphantly pointed to a pine like tree that had changed colors. We are not sure if it is a pine or not. In any case my wife and my daughter mustered as much dignity they could and moved on.

The next my wife needled her.

"Manama, look at that pine. I think pines too change colors"

Her reply was typically cocky

"You think. but I know they do!"