2015-03-28: Salad for the Ants

Years ago, Nigel had been introduced by someone at school or in the neighborhood to the idea of squishing ants. Dad thought this would be a good time to bring up empathy and compassion for smaller creatures. He picked up one of the ants, letting it crawl up his arm. He laughed and told Nigel how much it tickled when those cute little guys ran across his skin. Nigel wanted to try holding an ant, too, so Dad arranged a transfer over to Nigel's arm and they laughed together as it tickled him.
Since that day, Nigel and Dad have been excited to see ants in the upstairs bathroom from time to time, and Nigel always tries to catch them and let them crawl on him. They refer to these as their "ant friends".* Nigel's affection for these small creatures extends to other situations, as well. He likes to provide food for them when seeing colonies on our sidewalk or driveway. His favorite food to provide them is a "salad" of plant leaves and grass, which he piles in a decorative fashion next to an entrance to their nest.

Today marked the return of ants to the driveway for this year, and Nigel prepared them a celebratory feast in honor of the event, saying, "Here you go, ants. A big meal for our good ants, on your first day awake this spring."


*Note that Mom is understandably not so pleased on these occasions to see ants in the bathroom.

2015-03-14: Powers of 10 for Pi Day

Nigel and Dad worked on powers of 10 for Pi day this evening. They talked about the decimal point and about how to move numbers back and forth.