My son at 6 years, wrote a small illustrated book. He titled it "Reasons I Believe in Reincarnation." On the first page he starts with "Everybody deserves a second chance." The book ends with "Recycling is good." He believes that when we die, we get to choose whether we want to be a boy or a girl this time. He has lately added heaven and hell to his metaphysical belief system. He describes heaven and hell as a kind of time-out before you start again.

My daughter took up oil painting after abandoning water color. Although she paints beautifully, it has been hard to get her to remember to wash out her brushes. I have asked her to consider using a palette knife for that very reason. Her work is somewhat derivative of the more popular works of the surrealists. She is a big admirer of Dali and once wore, for an entire day, a long handlebar mustache.

My son, who's seven now, fancies himself a sculptor. He built a menagerie of tin and wire animals twisted into the most exotic and imaginative shapes. "These are from a very very very weird dream I had," he told me. Chickens with horns and cows with wings. A collector friend included the collection in a exhibit of American outsider art. Money from sales went into a trust fund for college.

My son has become a spy. He got a call from the Spy Ring. He'd like to tell me more about it, but he can't. "National security, Daddy. I hope you understand," he tells me. He's already begun receiving coded messages with funny foreign postmarks. I began to get concerned. What was he into? "Don't worry, Daddy. We're the good guys," he assures me. But don't they all think that?

Lately, my daughter's been on an entrepreneurial kick. "How can I make 2 million dollars?" She asked one morning over breakfast. She started with a lemonade stand. Then she bought my son's Gameboy games after he had tired of them. She sold them to a neighbor at a profit. She started trading the games at school. She buys or trades cheap for the games that her schoolmates have grown tired of. Then she turns around and sells them to kids who have fewer games or new game machines. She has no interest in the games themselves, but only plays the market. "What can I buy with 2 million dollars?" she asks me. "I think I will have that much in a hundred days."

Last week, my son asked how to make a hovercraft.

Yesterday, my daughter asked to go to Montana to find dinosaur fossils.

Today, my son told me that he had applied for a credit card over the Internet.

Over lunch, my daughter announced that she wanted to win the Nobel prize for science.

... Wes