Watching: A very moving Christmas episode on The West Wing.

Reading: Memoirs of a Geisha, which I finished tonight. This novel was beautifully written, and the depiction of the life of a geisha felt very authentic. The one thing I didn't like about the story was that the protagonist's only goal in life was to get the man she loved.

Grateful for: The good news about my uncle Jim, who underwent triple bypass surgery today. The operation went well, and Jim is recovering in the cardiac care unit. I'm so glad that his blocked arteries were discovered in time. Jim is my godfather as well as my uncle, and he is a wonderful, loving person. I want to know that he'll be with us for many more years.

Flowers as Food

Stephen and Matthew have been playing a lot with their Duplos recently. They both start out by covering their plastic Duplo boards with multi-colored blocks, then they add towers and other structures. This afternoon, Daniel came across one board, studied it for a moment, and then asked, "Matthew, did you do this?"

Matthew answered yes, and Daniel nodded sagely. "I thought so."

I laughed. "You mean, you recognize Matthew's building style?" I asked.

"Yeah."

I looked more closely at the board, and I realized Daniel was right. Matthew's towers are usually symmetrical in both color and structure. Stephen's work is much more haphazard. It's funny how their personalities are expressed even in the way they play with their building toys.

Daniel brought home his most recent science test yesterday. One of the questions on the test was: "What parts of plants can be eaten?" There were four blank spaces for answers, and he wrote: "leaves," "stems," "roots," and "flowers." His teacher marked "flowers" incorrect and penciled in "fruit" next to the answer.

As soon as I saw his test, I knew what had happened. While we were reviewing that chapter of his science textbook for the test, I had mentioned to Daniel that some plants, such as broccoli and cauliflower, have flowers that can be eaten. I knew he was remembering that conversation when he wrote down "flowers."

At first I was inclined just to accept his teacher's marking the answer wrong, but then I thought about it some more and decided to ask her to reconsider it. After all, his answer was only wrong in so far as it was not one of the answers given in the textbook. I don't want my kids believing that their textbooks are infallible.

So I spoke to Daniel's teacher about it today. She agreed to re-mark the answer as correct, which thus raised his grade from B+ to A. The grade change was far less important to me than the principle of the thing, however.

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