This comes to us from my son, Ryan Wheaton. Click it to embiggen:
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Footnote: If there was any question that love — not biology — makes a family, look no further than my son's delightfully twisted sense of humor, which I think I helped foster.
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That is what makes being a parent worthwhile. My 10 year old recently said, “Calvin and Hobbes are great, because they really love to break the 4th wall.” Happy sigh. Job well done.
<sarcasm>Nope, he’s nothing like you at all.</sarcasm>
Wil, you and Anne are parenting the right way… This is brilliant!!!
Parenting: You did it right.
I smell a PSA at the end of the next Tabletop.
Further proof (outside of my own family) that Nurture can truly supplant Nature in child-rearing. Brilliant.
Truly, he is your son.
Priceless 🙂
I am currently reading Just a Geek, I made it all the way to page 24 before I realized that your sons are named Nolan and Ryan. I’m no baseball fan, but that one I got.
Now witness the firepower of this fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL sense of humor!
I shudder to think what her two things were.
You won your epic dad badge there (though I suspect you already have it.)
Brilliant…your son is Brilliant! I would have loved to see the expression on the woman’s face…
Bah! Kids today…
I’m my day we’d have given up an arm and possibly a leg to go into space. Of course, NASA and the USAF would have disqualified you from being an astronaut if you were missing limbs, but we’d have done it anyway because we were kids and tended to be shortsighted (not near-sighted — which will also get you off the launch list — despite the fact that micro gravity tends to make your eyes go bad anyway).
Hey you space kids, get off my lawn!!!
…
What’s that you say?
…
Oh, right. Nevermind.
Stunning, just stunning. You and Anne have done some pretty incredible parenting.
You absolutely know you’ve done right when You hear yourself in their words. Also, that was friggin hilarious!
They always ask if I’ll donate money to support breast cancer, or kids on drugs. Of course not! Why would I want to give money to cancer? It’s KILLING PEOPLE.
😀 It reminds me a bit of ‘Hurricane Relief Reject’ by Rob Balder, campaigning for donations to help [spoiler alert] those poor Jovians living near the Great Red Spot. You can listen to a sample of it at http://www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=25334
Darn kids today are so spoiled, what with their atmosphere and their gravity. In my day we just held our breath and grabbed onto something. AND WE WERE GRATEFUL FOR IT!
OK – Tell RYAN he rocks! That is awesome… atmosphere and gravity – ROFL!
This is sooo funny. Let me know when the Kickstarter campaign starts.
BTW: You should have those kids in Tabletop.
I skipped the little blurb at the start, and thought that WAS your writing. I was imagining you outside of my local Trader Joe’s (yeah, I know he said Whole Food, but since that song thing you always shop at TJ’s in my head) yelling as you walked away. Then I reread it. He may not be genetically related to you, but crap the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
very amusing. i asked my 10 year old what two things a child needs most. he answered, then i let him read this post. so i asked him, “what about an atmosphere and gravity?” he said, “well, even in space there’s gravity, it’s just microgravity, and in space there’s an average of one hydrogen atom per cubic meter.”
as my husband and i say, “we have no one to blame but ourselves.”
Please give your son the highest of fives from me… Then share a slightly less high five with your husband!
Another high five sent to your some from me.
That’s classic.
Well done.
Oh, that’s just brilliant. Well done, Ryan!
DUDE!!!
Your son rocks!!!
Awesome response from your son.
I give no kudos to you or your wife: that was all him and he deserves recognition for it.
I hear ya, oxygen is for losers!
http://tinyurl.com/cs8hhcx
😉
thank you. high fives have been distributed. he’s a pretty awesome kid. i guess you know the feeling.
thank you. high fives passed around.
And props to your son for knowing that much about space at the age of 10!
Another piece of cube art for me to enlighten my colleagues with. 🙂
I see a new t-shirt.
“Hooray for gravity”
“Gravity Appreciation Day”
“Atmosphere Rocks”
Wil, I hope to be half as awesome a parent as you.
Wil,
Great to see that Ryan has a healthy dose of wit.
Btw, sent an invite to you on the old WWDN address, does that one still work or did it bounce?
Wil, please give Ryan my sincerest, highest five that I can give. And one to you as well, for being such a great parent, and one to Anne for the exact same reason.
I cannot convey in words how hard I laughed after reading that.
Jonathan swift would be proud! (That’s a “Modest Proposal” reference)
My mother divorced my birth father when I was less then a year old, and married the man I would know as my father before I was 2. Even though we aren’t genetically related, he will always be my “real” father, even though he and my mother divorced several years ago now.
I eventually met my birth father in my twenties, and the most surprising thing was not how alike we were, but how this man embodied all of my negative traits! Reflecting back, I realized that I had come further in my life with the same bag of troubles than my birth father had in twice the time, and it was mostly due to the man who raised me.
The things he taught me, and the love he showed me, helped me overcome many things. He’ll always be my “real” Father, and I am thankful for him and all those people in the world who don’t believe blood to be the only thing that defines family.
Good job Wil!
If that’s not trademarked, can the rest of us use it in case we’re ever asked the same question?
I know who those folks are! They’re from Children International and hang around outside of the Metro stations in D.C. with the Greenpeace folks. I haven’t been caught by one yet, but was planning on telling them that I give generously to Oxfam already. But this answer is so much more deliciously hilarious….
That is so fracking awesome.
I’m sure your mom said the same to you as mine did to me: “May you have TWO just like you.” I’d keep my eye on Nolan, if I were you… 😛
*Orsonwellsclap.gif*
OT: I was just watching a clip of Matt Taibbi, and was struck by the sense that he moves like Wil when he’s talking.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/talking-wall-street-corruption-libor-scandal-with-eliot-spitzer-20120706
Am I nuts? Were the separated at birth? They definitely share a love of “colorful metaphors”.
So if the next time Ryan goes by and that lady is wearing Andorian dilly boppers, are you saying you are partly responsible?
Seriously, he does have the Wheaton Way With the Word.
I will also support Operation StarChild by planting a tree (to improve out atmosphere).
Now, if someone could find a way to add mass to the Earth to increase the gravity well so children won’t go flying off into space…
Upon reading this item – my mind immediately put forth the following:
1] What a delightfully humble, nay quaint, nay deliciously modest proposal.
2] Could Jeff Bridges be secured as the television spokesman?
3] Would Parliament allow at least instrumental use of “Star Child” to play underneath sincere Star Man pleas for atmosphere and gravity? A soft, but, funky groove would fill the coffers! Money would pour in faster than an Ender travels!
Now, I have this infomercial in my head. Not a bad loop!
I read that many of these kids are being inducted into labor camps as a cost saving measure to keep the International Space Station in orbit. The SELOHU (Service Employees in Low Orbital Habitats Union) has filed suit in the ICJ, but there is jurisdiction question.
A very intelligent retort, unfortunately I just try to make them uncomfortable with responses such as “A1 Sauce and Pepper”.
Wil, I do the same thing while on the phone with telemarketers. (They hate me, but they laugh anyway). Taking life with a grain or to of salt really makes the difference and to see that your son has taken a few more spices other than those grains of salt it just awesome. YOU’RE a GREAT dad!
…oh, schnapp….