When Your Children Want To Swim With Unhinged Bigmouth Aliens...

Because kids are kids, sometimes you have to let them learn by experience … and if your kids are Kirks, curating those experiences is important to save their lives.

Take the Teravian Seahorse above for an example. They come in “fish tank” as well as “orca” sizes in their native environments, and they are such beautiful, colorful creatures that your kids might think that they would be fun to play with and ignore the warning signs not to.

“But we can't even read yet!” my baby daughter Laura Telluria said about herself and baby brother Laurence. “I mean, it doesn't count yet!”

Laura at five years old could actually read, but not Teravian, of course. Not that it would have made any difference to her or any of them but Marcia, who was verging on 15.

Mrs. V.T. Kirk and I thought about it, and then took all five to the local aquarium before hitting the “forbidden” bay shore areas of the Teravian wild for the weekend (swimming in the afternoon allowed, but not in the morning because Teravian Seahorses are largely nocturnal and finish eating in the morning).

My younger four children were amazed to see large-sized Teravian Seahorses – I mean, the size of their parents – in the aquarium.

“Oh, this is even better – we're going to have so much fun with the littler ones now that we know how they are!” my eight-year-old son Mark V. said.

V.T. and I just waited as the Teravian Seahorses sized our little children up, and eased up on the glass they were pressed against.

“They are so friendly!” Laura said.

“No,” I said as V.T. and I pulled them back, “just hungry.”

As if on cue, the nearest Teravian Seahorse showed why “unhinged bigmouth” is something of a curse word term for an evil person on Terav:

The Teravian Seahorse's jaws are observably almost as long as its body. You don't really get how serious that is until it is ready to eat you or some part of you. Even the ones that could fit into a fish tank can take considerable bites – a fingertip, a little toe – out of you.

A Teravian Seahorse my size was plenty big enough to swallow Laurence as a toddler whole, and perhaps even Laura back then as a challenge.

Of course, Laura, Laurence, and Mark V. weren't about to stick around to find out – they took off running clear out of the aquarium when they saw the “unhinged bigmouth” show his stuff.

“And that's why we don't swim with Teravian Seahorses, not even the little ones, and obey all signs by all shores, everywhere we go,” I said.

“Yep,” Laura said, “because I can't read but I read that!”

“Dad, that was horrible!” Mark V. said.

“I know!” I said. “And that's just one! That's why when your mom and I read the signs, we are keeping us out of horrible things!”

“Thanks, Mom and Dad,” eleven-year-old Valerie said.

“You're welcome,” V.T. and I said together. “It's why we're here.”

“You could have just scanned the QR codes, Valerie, Mark, Laura, and Laurence – well, maybe not Laurence, but come on – and had the universal translator tell you on that sign what those things can do,” Marcia said in all her teenage glory. “I don't understand why we had to all go through that.”

“QR codes are so 21st century!” Valerie said. “Sometimes, Marcia, you just have to find things out for yourself!”

But in the aquarium, not in the lake in the morning, running into a school of little late-feeding Teravian Seahorses – how we find out is important, because …

“I don't know about you,” Laura said, “but I just feel like I just learned how to count all my fingers and toes and I like them just the way they are!”

“And, I like Laurence not being gulped down, too,” V.T. said as he stopped fussing once settled in her arms.

“So, we read and obey all signs, and enjoy the rest of the weekend,” I said. “Thyifik Bay opens up for swimming in another two hours, so let's get a walk in and some lunch, and then get our swim in at the proper time.”

These sibling pure fractals made in Apophysis 2.09 were quite the shock, as much to me as to the little Kirks!