when he asked if he could have the extra can of clay lying around the house from aeva’s birthday party the day before, it struck me as odd why he’d even be interested in it.

“oh, you’re gonna give it to your nephews?”

“no, it’s for me.”

oh-kaaay.

i’m not gonna lie. it crept me out a bit. i thought it’s pretty retarded for a guy his age to be molding clay balls and then flattening it out to make clay pizzas or stretching it out to make unimaginatively-formed earthworms the way i made them back when i was a kid.

poor turtle is still in therapy for PTSD.

but surprise, surprise. the dude can sculpt. like he can sculpt from his freaking imagination! i was mind-blown!

i have always been found lacking in creativity so it was pretty cool to watch the impressive transformation from a mere formless clay to an angry monster who’s a cross between a dinosaur and a gargoyle.

what makes it more amazing is the discovery of something i never knew about ram. i mean, i’ve known this guy for twelve years and it wasn’t until two months ago that i found out about this talent of his. definitely not a sh*t surprise.

what would be a sh*t surprise, of course, is when, another twelve years down the line, i discover he’s also a psycho killer. lol.

for a toddler who adores princess belle and aurora, aeva didn’t appreciate ram’s monster. so she had him turn it into a baby turtle instead. and what is a baby turtle without a mama turtle? ram made another one too, only bigger this time.

when mama turtle was finished, aeva immediately commenced the role play with her favorite starting dialogue, “hey there, mama turtle!”

for all the dude’s imagination in sculpting, he sure was at a loss for a story that would define a day in the life of the mother-daughter tandem. the sadist that i was, i enjoyed watching him struggle to come up with a plot.

when that failed, he balled up mama turtle into a turtle egg, promising her that it would hatch but she had to wait a little while.

to amuse the bored kid waiting for the egg to hatch, ram pretended to stuff the egg into his mouth, exaggeratedly swallowing for aeva to see. with eyes that grew bigger in shock with ram’s every action, aeva was adamant.

“spit it out!” she ordered as if she were the older one and ram was the kid.

“i can’t. it’s in my tummy already.”

“why did you eat my turtle, gram?!” she blurted out with sad teary eyes before walking out on him to go to her room to mope.

to appease her, ram offered, “look aeva, i’ll poopoo it out,” simultaneously making these funny facial expressions as if extricating the clay out of his digestive system, producing the clay in front of her with a big “chedeng!”

aeva laughed and squealed, “graaam!!!”

and just as suddenly, they were friends again. =)