"I have seen a baby try and fail to find its own toes and that was very cute but I have also ever heard the parents of small children talk and it is endless one-up-manship about how little sleep they're getting because of said small children and no thank you." 

"You don't need sleep when you have a baby of your very own."

(He sounds blissful at the thought.)

That's adorable. 

"Maybe Amentans don't," he says, and hugs him. 

"If I lived on Earth," he says, in the tone of a person fantasizing about winning the lottery, "I would have so many. Eight, maybe, so I can have a new baby when my last child has turned two-- uh, seven, in your years. Although if I have babies that wouldn't be stopping anyone else from having kids. I could have fifteen." 

"..........I almost don't want to suggest it because if I do I'm sure it's going to turn out that you have pressing responsibilities in your world." 

"I'm literally the only Amentan on the planet unless you've summoned an Amentan Sasha and she's a girl. And even if you had a girl Amentan I'd be dooming all my babies to a lifetime of empty springs because they wouldn't have anyone to have babies with."

"We have mad science for that! You wouldn't be anywhere near the least human-like alien we turned out to be able to have kids with." 

"In that case, I'm an unemployed grey with no loved ones except my parents and I'm pretty sure if I asked they'd prefer I give them twelve grandkids and never see them again to the reverse."

Oh no he's smiling. 

It's so good seeing him smile. 

"I'll talk to Asher, then." 

Bounce bounce. 

"I'm going to have baaabies! I'm going to have so many baaaabies!"

"As many babies as you want! — it's really good to see you happy." 

"All I need is an employer and somebody to have babies with! --Does it have to be a girl, if we're doing mad science anyway."

"I don't actually know, I'm not a mad scientist.

And now that you aren't restricted to grey jobs I bet there's a lot more out there that you'd be good at." 

Hair-touch. "I don't know, I'm still a grey, I don't have green or orange or yellow education or skills, and I'm probably not as smart as the average person working one of those jobs. I guess I could do purple work, a lot of purple work is unskilled."

"You could learn a skill, lots of people change careers at some point in their lives. And there are lots and lots of jobs where being smart doesn't matter all that much, being intelligent isn't nearly as important to being a teacher as being engaging." 

He keeps touching his hair. "I have no idea what I'm good at. I mostly know what I'm not good at."

"You've got time," Sasha says, and pets his hair and kisses his forehead. 

He keeps touching his hair. "I did decision sciences in high school, I would have gone into logistics if I hadn't flunked out of boot camp."

"You could do logistics here. Or economics, or psychology, or...." 

"I guess I did okay at linear algebra."

"....I shouldn't be in green school. Lev and Asher say it's not that I'm stupid but I'm pretty sure they're just wrong."  

Levva hugs him. 

"It's okay to be bad at school things. --I'd say 'I'm bad at school things' but I don't think that's very comforting, I am in fact unemployed for reasons directly connected to failing Survival Swimming."

"Thank you. But — the thing I was going to say is that there are still tons of jobs I could do, even fun ones, even though I'm not that smart? I couldn't be an academic but I could be an architect or a designer or lots of things, I'm sure there'll be something that you like and can do." 

"I'm glad they don't make you be a green if you test in to greenschool! --Although I guess if you could be a designer you'd probably be a good artist."

"I could be a decent one if I practiced but not good enough to do it as my day job, trying to make money that way is hell."