Submersible Thinking

Zaya's been fascinated with oceans, particularly the deepest parts (bathypelagic zones), all summer. He turns into a different deep sea creature (or bacteria) every time I turn around, and I've mostly been his prey, of course. He's also been obsessed with swimming and diving. (In the pool and in the bathtub. Anywhere with water, really.)

He's even invented several new denizens of the deep. (Like the Empalaudic Reacschment and the Gravel-filled Bubbler: each has his own interesting physical make-up and behavior pattern. I won't go into detail here, but I have them written up for his scrapbook.)



This evening he was concerned to discover that the deep-sea explorers who go down in the Alvin (a submersible) have a limited supply of oxygen, which means they can only dive for a little while before they have to return to the surface for air.

After thinking about this for a bit he said that when he grows up and has his own country he'll invent an Alvin with a large pipe that takes in sea water and filters it and then sends the water out the other side, taking the oxygen out in the process to use for the people inside; "kind of a like a fish's gills, Mom."

Sounds good to me. Now how do I get this thing built and patented.

And another worrying thing...how and why does he plan to 'get his own country' I'd like to know. If he has world domination on the agenda, he'll need to stop focusing so much on science and maybe learn some history and addition. (I guess all they need to know these days in government is subtraction.)

Here's his Attorney General. The child is becoming increasingly good at making what she wants to do sound reasonable. She's also pretty cute, which is dangerous to Mommy's sense of justice and right.