Somewhere, beyond the sea

For me, one of the benefits of having kids is the opportunity for a re-do on childhood. If I missed out on certain activities or opportunities, I can try again, with my boys. The downside of this concept would be if a parent were to become slightly stage-motherish and order a child to take the language and music lessons she never had (guilty!). But the upside -- and I'd like to think it's beneficial to all parties involved -- is that you sometimes get to do fun, really childish (childlike?) stuff. Like raise sea monkeys.
When I was a kid, I read comic books, and every one of them had ads for cool things like x-ray glasses and sea monkeys. For whatever reason, I never got either. But I spent a good amount of time looking at the ad and thinking about them.

Fascinating.
A little miniature underwater world. With royalty, apparently.
The boys got a sea monkey kit for Christmas, and we finally decided it was time to get to it. The sea monkeys of the new millenium have gone metropolitan. Their jarringly colorful world contains fake cars and gold high-rise buildings. Not quite a nautical paradise, but it came with the kit.
All you have to do is pour clean water into the "tank," stir in a purifying powder, let it sit for 24 hours, and then aerate the water by pouring it back and forth from the tank to another vessel a few times to force some oxygen into the water.

Then you add the sea monkey eggs, which we did. So far we do not see anything. The tank had magnification spots and even when we peer into them, we only see some black dots.

Well, I guess this might take a little time, so I'm waiting for our little creatures. I mean we are waiting -- the boys and I. If we can successfully raise a tiny principality, we'll be very tempted to order the x-ray glasses.