Thank you very much for commenting! I think you just made some fictional people out there very, very happy. See, I was about to comment back being all apologetic that I probably couldn't pull that off, keeping in mind the visual I had of the head botanist sitting alone drinking tea outside her bungalow... when all of a sudden, her yard was full of children chasing her husband around with the hose.

Plus, I think it would be nice to have them to contrast with the group that's been thrown together because of the language barrier and some of the more emotionally isolated scientists.

I have to admit- I don't historically handle that sort of thing. I mean, last year at this time someone was surprised that a character in something I wrote called his father. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! One of your cast members has a family?" The fact he then tamed a wild wheelchair went on a surprise date with a sentient squid raised no eyebrows.

My family has always worked like a bunch of teenagers trying to live in an old boxcar and punctuating their conversations with the phrase "I wonder what normal people talk about". I'm going to blame that.