~Metal Conversations~

While walking to the car after camp today...

Eamon:  "Mommy, how do you make metal?"

Me:  "Ummm, for what...??"

Eamon:  "You know, metal for my dragon tank that I'm going to make when I'm grown up."

Me:  "Right, the dragon tank.  Well, to make metal from scratch, you'd need to mine metal ore from the earth and then..."

Eamon:  "What's ore?"

Me:  "It's the bits of raw metal that's in the ground.  So you'd have to mine in and then heat it up super hot and mold it into the shapes you want."

Eamon:  "How do you pick it up when it's really hot?  Do you use oven mitts?"

Me:  "Well, not exactly..."

Eamon:  "Really big oven mitts?"

Me:  "Uh, sure, close enough..."

Eamon:  "But I still don't understand how I'm going to make metal for my dragon tank."

Me:  <struck with a sudden idea>  "Ok, remember that episode of Avatar, the Last Airbender when Sokka makes a sword from that meteor?  And they heat up the metal and mold it into the shape of a sword and beat it w/ hammers?  That's how you do it!" 

Thank goodness for Nickelodeon... ;)