a crab named Baseball

Children are much better than adults at coming up with distinctive names. Our friends down the street have had two pet hermit crabs since we've known them — Baseball, and his successor, Batman (who has an actual Batman decal stuck on his shell). When I came back from a recent trip I brought Sage a stuffed frog, which she immediately named Sesame Street. Nothing will ever top the name Evan famously gave his rubber praying mantis: Bill Pierce. No grownup could come up with a name that good for a praying mantis in a million years.

As I type this, Evan is amusing himself by disappearing out the front door and returning through the back door. As he passed by the last time, giggling, he said "I keep producing myself."