Husband is a computer guy, an electronic gadget lover, and a software engineer.  At our house we don’t just watch t.v. like normal people do.  Our t.v. is hooked up to computers out in our garage.  There is internet and an Xbox and a Kinect.  Routers and switches and servers and fifty feet of blue cable are also involved.  We use Hulu and Netflix of the streaming variety.  All our t.v. shows are recorded and accessed using Windows Media Center.  We never watch commercials.

Early last week when our wireless router died, Husband bought a new one and installed it thinking that should solve the problem.  It didn’t.  Every night after he got home from work he would spend time trouble shooting.  As the days crept on and our internet remained wonky I started to worry.

On Sunday Husband turned on live t.v. (something the boys have only seen a handful of times in their lives) and began to systematically unplug and re-plug in various doodads and whatnots to see how it affected things.  I honestly can not tell you what all he did or even what the problem was after he found and fixed it.  He did try to explain it to me.

husband:  So you know there is something called DHCP.  He spoke this as if it was not a question but rather a statement that most people know as fact.  (Please will at least one of you tell me you don’t know what DHCP is so I don’t have to hang my head in shameless ignorance.)

me:  blank stare.  Ummm, ok?

husband:  Blah, blah, blah, IP address, blahblahblahblah, printer, blah.  Whaatahblahblah and everything appears to work.

me:  Sooo, everything is working now?

But what about the dung beetles?  Right, about that.

This post is not about Husband’s mad computer fixing skills, this post is a French documentary called MicroCosmos.

I bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?  Needing something streaming on Netflix while he was problem solving, Husband picked the MicroCosmos documentary because it looked like it would be appropriate and not scary if the kids happened into the room while it was playing.  At first I questioned his definition of appropriate for it was while I was washing dishes that I heard what I can only describe as “getting it on” music.  I peer around the corner and see on the screen two moist undulating bodies, stroking and groping as only two slugs can stroke and grope.  It was both horrifying and fascinating.

Slug sex aside it was fricking amazing!  I can not say enough good things about this film.  Using incredible macroscopic photographic techniques, you feel as though you have eaten from the right hand side of the mushroom in Alice and Wonderland and suddenly you find yourself mere centimeters tall.  The music that accompanies the insect situations was paired in such a way that it added drama, humor, and intensity. There was very little commentary, well very little commentary on screen.  On the couch where Cody and Carter sat watching there was all sorts of great commentary.

Select Insect Scenarios with Cody & Carter Commentary:

Enter dung beetle, rolling a ball of what we can only imagine is dung.  After explaining the name of the beetle and describing what it is doing the boys laugh so much they were literally rolling around on the couch.  It was awesome.  Then tragedy strikes when the beetle rolls his precious dung ball onto a small twig-like thing poking up from the ground.  The dung is stuck fast (a sentence I never imagined I would write.)  Cody gets so distraught he is near tears.  Carter hollers out Go Poop Beetle, go!

Rain.  Enormous drops fall proving catastrophic to those little creatures that don’t take immediate cover.  Cody’s hand flies to his mouth as he fears for the safety of some water striders.

An insect eating plant leads to some interesting discussions about whether plants have throats.  Carter is very insistent that a plant’s throat is its stem.  He told us that he learned all about it on Dinosaur Train.

During a heated Stag beetle fight Cody yells out Now that is outrageous! Long pause, What does outrageous mean?

Lucky for us both boys are rather naïve when it comes to the birds and the bees so during “those moments” in the film the boys would oohh and ahhh over what nice friends the dragonflies were or how cute the snails looked when they play together.

And that my friends was our weekend of internet connectivity issues and dung beetle discussions.  I hope you get a chance to watch MicroCosmos, just be prepared for some interesting conversations if you watch it with children around.