16 march 2011, son of japan

My eldest, nine, is just discovering the real world. He's absolutely there science and geography-wise, but is just now discovering news, and beginning to understand that things happen. I tried to get him in front of a tv the day mubarak fell in egypt, but I suspect the first big thing he really remembers will be the japanese earthquake. We watched an early video together on the web, and he's had a million and one questions we've tried to answer. He wrote it up in his own blog (the first one that's not been about him/school) and he has been patiently trying to explain the whole thing to my second-born, seven. A couple of nights ago we caught him long after lights out in his den - also known as his top-bunk bed with blankets around it - reading the sunday newspaper, which it's hard to be hard on him about. He's especially interested now in the nuclear situation, as indeed we all should be. Nachas.