“Mama, I NEED to get an NDS.”

“What the heck?? Do you know what that is?”

“Of course I do. I invented it.”

“YOU invented the NDS.”

“Yes, and on my world everyone has to have one. I need one on this world so I can stop being hassled.”

“Wait. Are you talking about a Nintendo DS?”

“No I don’t even know what that is.”

“So what’s an NDS?”

“A Nicolaus Defense System. And I NEED ONE.”

Here’s what hurts:
Feet
Legs
Back
Shoulders
Head

Here’s what doesn’t hurt but feels heavy and tired:
Everything else

But even though my body disagrees, I’m awake and buzzing with noisy excited ideas.

The day tumbled open about an hour before I was ready. Both boys pulled me out of a dream because they wanted food, always with the food! Fine, food. And then we did morning schoolwork. Nicolaus read gruesome facts about sharks. Then I showed him how decimals work and how to multiply big numbers. He jumped up and down and kept blurting “That is SO COOL!” and jumping ahead with questions and oh man. So much gratitude. I do love that they don’t see math as something to be good or bad at; it’s just something that is SO COOL and they want to understand it.

I crammed his head full of new information, we did a few practice problems and then! I sent him off to go play with Legos and forbid him to think about the things we just learned. Let it soak in a little, I said. New big ideas don’t seem to build in linear chunks. It’s not a Lego tower. It’s more like making bread… you put the stuff in and knead it for a few minutes, then what do you do? You put a towel over it and walk away.

While he played with Lego ninjas, I called Graham over to talk about fractions. He had encountered them before but we’d never officially discussed them. It’s time, little dude! We cut up straws, we drew pizzas. Math book writers love pizzas. Just like with Nicolaus, I did my inelegant best to help him understand how this works. He was much more serious about it than his brother, no squealing with gratitude. He wanted to get it and seemed a little worried that he wasn’t getting it. I grabbed the iPad and found a handful of fractions apps, and four minutes later he was taking a test. He got 19 out of 20 correct but still didn’t seem relaxed about it. I told him that this might not totally make sense yet but some part of it will soak in every time we talk about it.

Then oh ho! The mail truck pulled all the way up into our driveway. The Nerdy Baby laser cuts are here! The laser cuts are here! Nicolaus ran to get a can of soda for the mailman while Graham rushed out to look at his truck up close. “What’s this light for? What’s this handle on the back of your truck for? Do you ever have someone ride back here? Did you realize that these front lights are the same shape as the ones over here?”

The guy was very gracious about acting as our spontaneous field trip to the driveway.

When he left we had the obvious thrill of cutting open the boxes and pulling everything out, partly to inspect for damaged pieces and partly to pile everything up on the dining room table and admire it. So many hours upon hours spent working on these pieces and now they’re here for real.

Packed it all away again, called Nicolaus back and gave him problems to solve. He had to think about it, and that’s what I wanted. I wanted him to solidify the ideas and think out loud as he tried to remember what to do. It’s just punching the dough back down and kneading it some more, right?

One more round with Graham, and it was time to go. The rest of the day was spent in and out of the car. At the post office I handed my keys to Graham, told Nicolaus my PO Box number and sent them running off to go check my mail. This means they run around a corner and out of my sight… I want them to feel that I trust them to handle it on their own. A minute later they came running back waving a check. Nicolaus asked “How much money did you get?” so I showed him how to read a check. Then I made him read the amount, find the date, and other obnoxious things like that.

Next we had to find the DMV. They worked on Mad Libs on the drive there. Bless Mad Libs for coming up with a junior version which gives kids more room to write their witticisms. Without this innovation I never would have heard the Amazing Adventures of Wombat Woman with her sidekick the Purple Schoolbus which Farts out Magical Mops. Her nemesis is a sentient stink which can only be defeated with air freshener. I don’t know why these Mad Lib things haven’t put hollywood movie writers out of business.

The DMV experience was all of the good and all of the bad that you imagine. Here’s how many times I had to go back across the parking lot to my car to dig for more documentation of my existence: 2

Here’s how many times I had to threaten one of my children with absolutely 100% definite being fed to crocodiles after this if they didn’t quit clowning around while I talked to the nice lady: 3

But other than that everything went better than expected. Next we had to race to another part of town to pick up baby onesies and the new !!!!!!! organic super soft omg knit baby blankets. It was a long drive and we hit construcition traffic so ah! iPad! Sight words practice! Reading! Fractions! CAR SCHOOL

The best part of the day was Pandora discovering the song “Re Your Brains” by Johnathon Coulton. Oh my heck. From the back seat Nicolaus cackled and shouted UPVOTE! While Graham shook his head and said DOWNVOTE!

I upvoted like heck.

More running around town and finally we ended up at Target. Just walking in to Target makes me tense up, but sometimes they plain old have what you need.

Hit the house, unloaded everything, fed the dog and let her play outside while I made dinner. Let her back in, gave her a new toy, straightened the living room, did dishes, fed kids, read stories, put them in bed, and realized I forgot to eat– nearly all day long I forgot. Cooked myself an amazing little meal and now now now

I should go to bed.

But oh my gosh I am so excited about the new blankets and the wooden playsets are coming together and I don’t want to sleep! I want to work. It’s like that dough thing; it feels like we are so close to getting these Nerdy Baby things out there. I hate to waste time on sleep when I could be taking pictures, finishing packaging, assembling everything, researching PR, emailing potential new retailers, go go go punch pinch pull squish it all together until you’ve really got something.

Summer swells up until you just about can’t stand it and then it finally lets go with a rush of cool air. Every day now we go out on the driveway and just stay there because we don’t want to miss this gorgeous kind of day. We are doing our schoolwork out there, we’re eating snacks out there. The boys tie each other to trees and throw tight-fisted handfuls of dust and gravel on the ground to make little clouds explode up into the sunlight. We planted sticks and marked the changing shadows with chalk until the sun rocked too far behind Kevin’s truck and we gave up. We didn’t label the hours, the hours don’t matter much, we just wanted to see the light tromp over us like that.

Today it was play sand. We don’t have a sandbox, and I thought about it a minute and decided that’s fine. No sandbox. The boys scooped out half the bag while the dog and I stayed out of their way.

With no sandbox there were no sandbox toys, they just got to work scooping and sliding and building tiny castles. Graham put his efforts into making his pretty. He swirled the sand like he was on Cake Boss, then he carefully placed leaves around it. He made a flag by stabbing another leaf with a twig.

Meanwhile Nicolaus readied his castle for war. He scrubbed a deep moat and reinforced the walls with secret, hidden stones. He mixed sand and water and mud to create mortar that would strengthen the structure. He added cannons and intimidating-looking spikes and a hidden entrance. He said, “Graham’s looks great. I’m not worried about how mine looks. I want it to WORK.”

When they were finished they decided that they’d put too much work into their castles to fight them. So then they made a third, smaller castle. This one wasn’t designed to be beautiful or strong. It was designed to cause trouble was all.

Ten more minutes and it was over, all rumpled up, and a winner was declared but I don’t remember now who it was.

Driveway playing is somehow much sweatier, dustier, doggier work than more civilized back porch playing. We finally broke camp right before dark and I sent them straight into the shower.

They showered. I warmed up leftovers and added some yogurt and stuff on the side.

Nicolaus ate all of everything and asked for seconds. After that he was still hungry, so I gave him our last yummy brown pear. Followed by popcorn. Just two bowls of cereal and he was full, which is lucky because now we’re out of food.

I read stories to them about penguins and robot cars while Graham drew mazes for me, and then it was time for bed. After brushing his teeth, Nicolaus ran into the kitchen to checked on the mold (think casting, not spores) he made this morning and came back a minute later to hug me goodnight and report that his mold idea didn’t work. He didn’t sound upset, just wanted to figure out what he could try tomorrow. His material was too brittle, so when he tried to pull the tiny plastic toy sword out, the mold broke. I promised to look up what we can get to make a rubber mold after bed, so that’s what I’m doing now; I’m reading about moldmaking silicone putty and paint-on stuff and releasing agents and resin and set times and how to avoid bubbles.

But now I’m wondering how far an eight year old would have to get into making copies of his toys before he runs aground on the Isle of Intellectual Property Rights Infringement.

No. That’s a lie. An hour ago I was wondering that. Now I’m wondering whether or not I’m okay with going to bed when there are still lots of dishes in the sink.

1. Tomorrow Nicolaus has to have a baby tooth extracted. He is nervous. I implied that if he were to cooperate and let them do everything lickety split bing bang boom, there may be a LEGO Ninjago set in it for him. Because even their most outrageously priced set is far, far cheaper than the $750 one dentist wanted to charge for sedation. I’m nervous for him but do you see me acting nervous? No. One day my kids will grow up and find out the truth about Santa Claus, and the tooth fairy, and Mellow Mama.

2. They have strong suspicions that Santa is an elaborate hoax and that the tooth fairy is Daddy but they’re afraid to ruin a good thing. Similarly, I suspect that they suspect that I’m secretly freaking out almost all of the time. Or is that just me being paranoid? It’s hard to say. One of those Heisenberg things.

3. Do you ever watch Shark Tank? We are in our eighth year of no television, but as our internet speed increases oh man. We don’t even bother trying to be smug about having no TV anymore. We watch more hours of Netflix and Hulu and other completely 100% legal internet TV shows than any TVless person could ever claim. We’re like that vegetarian who will eat chicken gizzards and shark fins because those things aren’t meat you see.

Shark Tank makes me feel good about our business. We don’t have our act together as well as the guys with their line of personal rocket launchers already in production or the single stay at home special needs mother of four who invented a deodorant that will save lives. But we’re much farther along than the woman who wants to revolutionize the way we deal with laundry that our kids threw up on by marketing a newly packaged version of the Slanket, or the obnoxious guy who brings on his biodegradable poop-catching dog harness that he made himself out of tampons, plastic grocery bags and zip ties (”Well this is just the prototype. That’s why I need your $500,000!).

So anyway. I ride my new exercise bike and watch that show and pretend I’m on there trying to explain the concept behind Nerdy Baby to grumpy but helpful rich people.

Hello! My name is Tiffany Ard and I am the founder of Nerdy Baby, LLC. We make adorable science-themed books and gifts that no one should ever buy because it’s all a little silly. But people insist and who am I to tell them what they should and shouldn’t do with their money? Making and selling things to nerdy people is much more fun than having a regular job. And that’s my vision. To never have a regular job again.
I am seeking $250,000 which we need in order to take our company to the next level. Seven thousand of that funding would go towards eating gluten free pizza at that place I like. We would use the rest of this money to manufacture inventory, hire my husband full time, and possibly to buy a pet goat.

SHARKS TAKE NOTES. ONE OF THEM ASKS: And that $250,000. How much equity would you sell to us for that amount?

I am offering you all a zero percent stake.

CAMERA CUTS TO THEIR SHOCKED FACES: So that means you are valuing Nerdy Baby at…

Infinity dollars.

DRAMATIC MUSIC. Infinity dollars?

Yes. We have run all of the projections and see no reason why this business would ever stop being profitable.

SHARK INVESTOR #1: But that’s not how it works.

Yes, it is. So I am also asking for your help in finding a manufacturer in the USA, and any connections you have as far as PR and distribution would be fantastic!

SHARK INVESTOR #1: I’m out.

SHARK INVESTOR #1: I’m out.

SHARK INVESTOR #1: I’m out.

SHARK INVESTOR #1: I’m out.

SHARK INVESTOR #1: You seem like a nice person! But there’s no reason for me to give you any money. I’m out.

ME, nodding in agreement: Absolutely. I’m out, too. I don’t want to partner with people who don’t get my vision.

4. Graham wants very much to understand why there are seasons. You can see him stretching his brain. We’ve demonstrated, we’ve acted it out by spinning around each other, we’ve drawn it, we’ve watched videos, we’ve looked at books. We’ve done things with our flashlights. And he almost gets it, but his brain isn’t quite six and this won’t quite go in yet. Sometimes for a second oh! He almost had it. Then he doesn’t.

I don’t know when it fell into place for Nicolaus. This is why we re-tread the same topics every year in a little more depth. You don’t know when they can process it all but it’s good to think about big ideas and things that are counterintuitive like the earth moving and decimals existing and so on.

Lately he also thinks a lot about how many people there are in the world. He wants me to tell him what they’re all doing right now. He wants to know whether there’s anyone saying the same words we are saying — right at the same time. He wonders how long it will take everyone who is alive now to become old people. He thinks he’s got about 100 years before he’s an old man.

He asks me why those people named their store this thing and not something else, and he wonders what other names did they consider? What was the first name they thought of? Why didn’t they pick that one?

When I tell him I don’t know, he shrugs and says “Look it up.”

And that right there may be the thing that separates this generation from any other. In my day we could look things up. We’d drive to the library and make a list of related concepts and hope that one of them would be in the SUBJ card catalog. The card would send us off on a scavenger hunt through the Dewey decimal system and/or into the wonderful Microfiche archives; the whole set up was a great chance to spend two hours pretending to be a spy looking for ze documents but it seems inefficient now that we have iphones and Wikipedia.

5. Which reminds me, this year the Ard School of Arts and Sciences acquired an iPad. It made me queasy to spend the money but oh my holy living heck, it is a phenomenal teaching tool. We have it loaded with educational stuff now and after using it all summer I’m thinking of writing up a list of what apps we love and why. Because there’s not enough of that sort of thing on the internet and I like to help.

6. Which! If you’re a developer, please write an app that will let my kids combine different elements and chemicals and zoom in to see what’s happening on a molecular level. ASAP, please.

I’m also surprised that there aren’t better apps for explaining how multiplication and division work. There are tons of fantastic ones for drills, but there’s a big gap between preschool-kindergartenish math and okay now practice your times tables! We fill in with Starfall’s new math content but it would be neato to have an app. And seems simple to do? To me. Because I don’t know how making apps works.

Which is too bad because I am full of fun ideas! Just ask the investors from Shark Tank.

7. Graham has always wanted a cat and now he wants a specific cat which belongs to a neighbor, who offered to give her to us. Where I’m from if someone offers you a free pet in front of your children, you call the police.

PRO: free thing that would make my cute child very happy.
CON: we already have a fish, a bird and a dog and really don’t need to add another link in our food chain of pets.

For now it’s still the neighbor’s cat. She comes running over to say hi whenever the kids are out in the yard, they get to pet her and play with her while the neighbor pays for vet bills and cat food. This arrangement seems ideal to me.

8. Which speaking of pets! This summer I saved Graham’s pet fish, Miss Spottyhead, from an aggressive illness. That’s right, I nursed a 1″ long unimpressive-looking mottled brown fish back to health. I don’t know what made me decide to take up the cause. It’s a kid’s betta fish — and not the kind with fancy mohawks and stuff. Just a little female fish going on two years old. If she’d simply died two months ago I would have comforted Graham but honestly wouldn’t have registered it as particularly sad. But being SICK well! That’s different. She couldn’t swim or eat, and all her fins were gone. We can’t give up on a pet just because she’s sick for lord’s sake. And now when she sees me she rushes over to that side of the tank because she thinks I’m a nice person who will drop a bit of food in. I feel weirdly thrilled to see her daily improvement. Is this how Florence Nightingale felt all the time? So if I accomplished nothing else this summer, let the record show that I spent twenty times the amount of money, time, and effort into rehabilitating Miss Spottyhead than we put into acquiring her.

9. If you ever think that it’s raining so you should just set up a big sandbox for your kids in the kitchen because it won’t be any big deal to sweep it up, don’t do it. It will be a big deal. Seriously, wait for it to stop raining.

10. There are many more unrelated things I want to write about (sexism! garlic! play sand! my hair!) but it’s 1:30 in the morning and we have to get up early and go pay a nice lady to pull out our child’s tooth.