Chip Off the Ol' Block

This was under the tree! For me!

 Husband and I come from very different schools of thought when it comes to wrapping Christmas presents. He is from the If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Well school of thought. I am from the It's Not Worth Doing But I Have to Do It Anyway So I'm Not Going to Spend a Lot of Time On It school of thought.

This means that each of Husband's presents is a loving vision of sharply creased corners and end tucks. Each side of the paper is folded over before being taped, ensuring that no raw edges mar the occasion with their unfinished vulgarity. He is a master of precision and artfulness, and his presents sip their tea with upraised pinkie fingers.

My attitude is that if nothing shows through it's a win. I am slapdash and sloppy, and much tape covereth a multitude of wrapping sins. My presents wouldn't even sip tea; they're all cuppa joe types.

I did not wrap the package above, but it filled me with motherly pride. Faced with the (admittedly difficult) task of wrapping a fat separator, Boy#2 just started wadding paper around until it was covered, then threw up his hands with a tah-dah!

I thought back on that present last night when Two sent me last-minute proofreading request. He will be presenting research at a conference this week and wanted to make sure he hadn't goofed up any of his PowerPoint slides.

That was the exact moment I knew he had officially outgrown my help with his academic work. One slide was titled "Simulated Sferic Waveforms." Another contained the phrase "Filter multiple systems to verify results: EMI BF4 System (150 mHz – 700 Hz), Quasar Federal Systems (QFS) Sensor (2 Hz – 25 kHz)."

In the entire presentation the only words I understood were the conjunctions and prepositions and there were precious few of those. I e-mailed Two back, and let him know that I hadn't found any words of fewer than two letters misspelled but he was on his own for the others. 

For a couple of minutes I was kind of sad, thinking of how much I had enjoyed sharing my knowledge with our sons, and how the knowledge sharing now is flowing the other way, what with my inability to figure out how to unplug and re-plug the modem when the cable goes out and OH MY GOSH IT'S ALMOST TIME FOR DOWNTON ABBEY!

But then I remembered that package containing the fat separator and I knew things were okay. 

He's still mah bay-bee.