Cows

"Cows are heavy."

Sometimes I have to do a double take at things my kids say. And then I wonder if they are as smart as I like to believe they are. Sometimes I just don't know how to respond. What is the proper response? "Yup, sure are, son. So's a car," sounds a bit sarcastic.

"Like maybe a ton, at least, right? Cows have to weigh a ton. That's big." Caleb mused, not seeming to expect a reply, which was good as I wasn't sure how to answer. "It would be stranger if they weren't heavy though, wouldn't it?"

 The pause went on a bit too long and I realized that he wanted a response."Like balloon cows?" I asked, hoping that we were still on the subject of cows. Sometimes I don't pay close enough attention and subjects move forward without me.

Giggles came from the back seat. "Balloon cows. That's funny. You couldn't herd balloon cows." Another pause. "Or feathers. If cows were feathers that would be funny, but hard to keep inside a fence."

"And they wouldn't weigh as much," I ventured.

More giggles. "Cow feathers. Which would weigh more? A balloon cow or a feather cow?"

"Um..." Being a mom doesn't prepare you for all questions. This was one thing they never warned me about in mom school.

"I guess maybe if a balloon cow had helium, it would weigh less than a feather," he finally decided. Then he laughed again.

I laughed too. I really like this job sometimes.

Precision and Poetics

When Caleb was just learning to speak, I loved to have him explain his world to me. At the time, I was in graduate school and one of the things I had to study was the development of language in children. He was always an outlier on the high side of the bell curve. He was one of those kids who rarely got frustrated by his lack of language facility because he was always able to talk his way around problems.

When he was about two he saw a large swarm of dragonflies, and he informed us: "Look, a dragonfly party!" This made total sense because while he didn't know what a swarm was, he knew what a party was.
When he wanted to describe a trail we were hiking that was under water, he called it the "juicy trail." Mom's Wisconsin house was "The sharing house" for obvious reasons.

Hannah was never as easy with her language usage; she was one of those kids who would get frustrated because we didn't know what she was saying, or at least we couldn't interpret what she meant. As the years have gone on, however, I've come to appreciate her thought process (although I still can't say I understand it.) She is a literalist who loves saying exactly what she means. She can't talk around problems like Caleb because talking around a problem means that she's not saying exactly what she wants to say. She needs precision

With this as a background, here is a conversation we had yesterday:

Me: "Here's an interesting quote. It's from Albert Camus. He was a French-Algerian writer. 'Autumn is a second spring, where every leaf is a flower.' What do you think he meant by that? (in the interest of full disclosure, I was reading the funny papers, and Mutts had this quote in it. I'm not so big a fan of Camus that I'd introduce him to eight and ten year old kids.)

Hannah: "Maybe he meant that the leaves are going to fall off the trees and decompose. After the winter, when spring arrives, flowers will grow better because of the composted leaves."

Me: "Um...well...that's an interesting point of view...."

Hannah: "Or maybe he meant that the leaves have colors like flowers in the spring."

Caleb: "I think I'd go with your second idea."

Hannah: "What's Alergian?"

Just try to explain poetry to a literalist. I dare you.

Embarrassing Your Kids: Lesson 2

Review: This was Lesson #1 in embarrassing your children.



 Here's #2.

I kept looking for Canadian police officers to take a photo with. They all have some pretty snazzy uniforms. They reminded me of the Kids in the Hall sketches with the police officers. They all had cool stripes on their trousers, very clean (the uniforms) and well fitting. Whenever I saw officers on the street, however, they were busy with actual "policey" things--go figure. This same scenario happened in Ottawa, St. Remi, and Quebec City.

In Ottawa however, we toured the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It was a really, really cool museum and provided me with the only opportunity I had to get close to Canadian Law enforcement; We stood next to the mannequin with the Mountie uniform.

Why was this embarrassing? Well there was a group of tourists from Italy that were watching us funny the whole time. Hopefully they thought we were Canadians being patriotic. I don't think that they did though. Americans are recognizable anywhere.

Striking Out on Our Own

So, what are we doing during the Chicago Teacher's Strike? We are reading, doing the remainder of our Summer Bridge activities (which we were too busy to do during summer), and we were sightseeing around the city. We stopped in the other day at one of our favorite sites. The Garfield Park Conservatory. It's a gorgeous place to visit...in an unfortunate neighborhood.

And we picked a great time to visit. They have ART! Art amongst the plants. This is something that they have done a lot in past years. I remember seeing the Dale Chihuly sculptures when Hannah was still in a stroller. The conservatory is over a hundred years old, and Jens Jensen was one of the movers and shakers in its inception, but it was very badly damaged by hail last summer. They're still working on restoring the plants and rooms, and replacing the glass.

One of the great things about the conservatory is that I am always surprised by the creativity that they manage to put on display. This year, instead of importing an artist, the conservatory employed twelve different Chicago artists to make art installations throughout the conservatory. We had a great time finding them all. Although I didn't manage to photograph everything, here are a few of our favorites.

There were the hanging fruits...they looked like tomatoes hanging from the ceiling, but they were planters. They also looked like little round squid, or an alien about to drop on your head, but hey, it's art!

There were towers of caps from detergent bottles. It was really kind of neat. I never would have done it, but I don't pretend to be an artist.

There was this...net thing. Balling wire, screening, and...well, we thought it was a cocoon from which a large butterfly must have emerged. This thought was enhanced by another display that looked exactly like a large rice-paper cocoon prior to the emergence of  a super-sized butterfly, but I didn't get a photo.

But even without the artists, there is plenty to contemplate and observe at the Conservatory. Like These melon shaped things. I don't recall what they were, but the kids were kind enough to stand beneath them looking thoughtful...or angry. Or thoughtfully angry because their mother put them in danger of being brained by mystery fruits and they really question Mom's judgement sometimes.

The Conservatory is more than plants inside. Outside, we were able to not only interact with nature, but also with traffic cones. The kids played conservatory bingo, looking for everything from rabbits to goats. This unusual sculpture was not on their bingo card, surprisingly enough.

The traffic cone sculpture from a distance. The lily pond is gorgeous.

These goats were on our bingo cards. The placard explaining the presence of goats on the west side of Chicago was, unfortunately, written in chalk. I was unable to read most of it. They appear to be at the Conservatory as part of an urban farming experiment.(?) To the credit of the goats' proprietor, you can't get much more urban than the west side of Chicago.

A lovely Morrocan fountain. More beautiful art...and more interactive than you'd think. I saw someone washing their hands in it after they ate lunch. 

My kids are fascinated with the idea of meditation. Lucky for us, there is a labyrinth that is well-maintained here with instructions for walking it. They waited until another lady was done with the walk, and they took off--reasonably slowly. Hannah later said that her favorite part was getting her shoes wet in the waterlogged beginning and ending. I guess that if that's how she achieves inner peace, I can't knock it. I just wish she hadn't been wearing my shoes.

Precious, precious fishes! Actually some really honking huge koi. We always have to visit them.  We were even allowed to feed them once. It was a highlight. I think the kids like to hang out here just in case we're ever asked to feed them again.

The kids and I wandered around the Conservatory for several hours. Hannah and Caleb insisted on travelling apart from me for most part of our visit. I didn't mind. I like it when they get along; it happens so rarely these days. The quiet was soothing to me, and the ultra-oxygenated atmosphere is good for the lungs. 

Did we learn anything? I'm sure we did. I'm just not sure what yet. Sometime knowledge takes time to sprout and grow. Like the plants there. The Conservatory is growing a lot of new plants after the destruction of the hail storm. It's going to take awhile though. They have the huge Show Room closed so that it can be used as a makeshift propagation house because several greenhouses were mostly destroyed. It's going to take time to regrow and rebuild. 

Damage from the hail storm on a greenhouse roof.

The Fern Room after the hail storm.

The Fern room today.

But in the midst of this rebuilding, regrowing, and searching for elusive knowledge there's always room for fun! The Museum of Contemporary Art has an installation right next to the gift shop. It's a room filled to the ceiling with balloons. White balloons. Thousands of white balloons. Visitors to the Conservatory are invited to go inside.

So we did...
...and we got lost in the art...
...and it was a great place to spend the afternoon. I think I want to go back. Funny that something that's been around for 105 years can feel new all the time.