Had some wonderful new friends over last night for dinner, Chad and Kristen and their two darling little boys, Alexander and Andrew.  (What is it about naming children using the same first letter?  My Dad did it, my nephew and his wife have done it...don't they know it challenges us of the tiny brain?)  Alexander is 3 years old and Andrew is an adorable baby just under a year old.

They both were very well behaved; Andrew crawled around and happily explored.  "Zander" kept close to the folks at first but then we found some balls for him to play with and he came out of his shell.

We had a yummy dinner (if I do say so myself) of chicken and mushrooms with wine, onion and garlic sauce, accompanied by fresh squash from the farmer's market.  We topped the whole meal off with strawberries in balsamic vinegar and a dollop of light whipped cream.  One of the great things about having time to cook is that I find I enjoy it more and I'm getting more creative with "basic" recipes.  Anyway, everyone seemed to like it and Zander even ate a whole chicken breast!

After dinner, we visited and played with the kids while showing the adults our slides from the Antarctica trip.  Zander was fascinated with the penguins but other than that, he and I tossed the balls around while the slides played.  Then the grown-up "boys" began tossing the ball with him and it quickly became a game of dodge ball with Zander dodging, throwing (he's got a great arm for 3) and proclaiming "Ouch" loudly, then giggling louder, every time he was hit.

In the LA Times the past few days, there's been a series of articles about memory and how it's created.  The science is fascinating.  I've read a book about parenting and memory formation (on a recommendation from Dr. Gregory Hamlin) called Parenting from the Inside Out.  The book talked a lot about the way memories are formed in early childhood.  The articles focus on a particular researcher and his discoveries about the actual chemical processes that take place to create memory.  There's a great "interactive" slide show that breaks it all down.  An event is translated to an electic impulse that fires in a neuron cell.  The electrical impulse is translated into a chemical reaction that sends neurotransmitters across the gap between neurons called a synapse.  And (if the memory "sticks"...ie, if the chemicals make it across the gap and onto receptors) then the chemicals physically restructure the nerve cell, thereby creating memory.

Naturally, that got the poet in me going.  I thought of how events "swim into memory" across the synapse.  How some are rejected, some make it across and some build structures so sturdy that a whiff of strawberries can take me back to hulling strawberries with Grandma Baldridge 30 years or more ago.  I thought about those little boys last night.  How Chad tossed Andrew around so casually and to the baby's great delight.  Will Andrew remember the feeling of flying and falling into sure hands?  Will he always love the slow ride up the roller coaster and find himself laughing like a little child during the twists and turns of the downhill slopes?

I like to think so.

I love how life has these synergistic moments...a dinner comes together with an article and then sparks ideas.  And I love how a child laughs so freely, so innocently, with every cell of his being, between the toss and the fall.

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