Smart Chick

Hannah is getting used to school again. It's a little difficult. Organization is not her strong suit (not that I'm a great role model for her. My room looks like a yarn store exploded.) But she's starting to make friends, and she is getting her homework (mostly) done. Still, there's a few things she's getting used to. There are cliques that we never had to deal with before that seem to have sprung up in fourth grade. She's not always the most socially adept--she speaks her mind too freely for everyone's comfort sometimes.

A friend of Hannah's stopped by the other day. She just got a rocking cool haircut. Kind of punk. Kind of retro. She's eleven and if this is how she wants to express herself, good for her.

"I didn't recognize her!" Hannah said laughing at the memory and rolling her eyes at her inability to recognize someone who she has known for years. "Then she walked up to me and gave me a hug at recess. Who else would do that? That's how I recognized her. It's a really cool haircut."

Her friend's face fell. "I really needed a hug. I got called two really bad names today. Someone called me Lesbo, and someone else called me Faggot."

Hannah looked confused. "What does that mean?"

Her friend shook her head. "You don't want to know."

"They're mean names for people who are gay," I explained to Hannah who needs answers for things. Half answers don't work for her mind. She'll keep asking questions until she gets to the bottom of things.

This was still not a good explanation for Hannah. "But...what's wrong with people?" she asked looking confused. "Why would they try to make you feel bad that way? It's not like there's something wrong with being gay. Why would people use mean names to talk about nice people?"

Hannah was leafing through her math book as she recalled her summer. "I mean, my Auntie Becky has a girlfriend, and they're really nice. And there's Rosie and Michelle. They're cool too. And Cassidy's Moms. What are their names again, Mom, I can't remember." Suddenly the subject changed. "Hey, Did you use this math book last year?"

"Yeah, I know that math book!" her friend said, relaxing finally. "You know, next year, you'll do your math all differently."

"Great," Hannah griped. "I'm just getting used to it this way...."

I know that the kids at school have to go through anti-bullying classes. But I think that Hannah took away a lot of the power of these bullies just through her incomprehension of their mean-spirited attempt to belittle someone. Her normal is much more inclusive and understanding and kind and open than many other kids that she is exposed to...

...and I'm proud of that. I'm proud of her. She's a smart little chick(en.)

 

Hannah's favorite t-shirt. Mine too. She looks a lot like the chicken on the front
Her nickname is Chicken.

Learning to Debate, and the Invincible Dilema

"I don't understand why. You said that if you get a cut on your head, it bleeds a lot, right?" Hannah asked.
"Yes," I replied, recalling bringing Caleb to the hospital when he cut his head, my own stitches as a child, other head wounds I've seen.
"Well, why don't we have scales or something to make our heads not bleed so much. Why did we develop this way?"
"I don't know. Humans are an imperfect design."
Hannah sighed. "If I designed people, heads would be better."
"If I designed people, we'd be invincible," Caleb informed us, supremely confident in his assessment of what would solve all of our head-bleeding problems.
"That wouldn't be fun," Hannah opined. "If we were invincible...where would the conflicts be? Conflicts make life interesting."
"Sometimes...." I began.
"I don't mean wars," she said, obviously sensing "mom lecture mode" coming on. "I mean like if you were invincible, you wouldn't be afraid of car accidents or plane crashes, or anything so you'd never have conflict."
"I can see that," I admitted.
Caleb sounded hurt when he said, "Well, I guess I won't say anything else, since you both agree. Invincibility is bad I guess."
"No," I disagreed. "I never said that. Now you tell me what is so great about being invincible."
"Oh." Caleb warmed to his subject quickly. "You could do anything, you wouldn't worry about dying."
Hannah interrupted. "Then we'd have overpopulation," she said primly.
"Hannah, let Caleb have his turn," I said sternly. "Go on, Cay."
"No, people would die," he informed us. "But only of old age. Not from being sick, or accidents. We could climb mountains and not worry about falling off. We could survive crashes and we could do things that we don't do because we're afraid."
"Well, if I knew I wouldn't die from a fall, I might actually take up mountain climbing."
The kids laughed. They know I fear heights like nothing else.
"But if there's no danger, there's no conflict," Hannah said after a minute. "That wouldn't be interesting. You couldn't tell stories. Everyone would be the same. There wouldn't be any heroes."
"But people wouldn't die too young," Caleb countered. "You wouldn't need heroes. Everyone would be doing interesting things."
"Then no one would want to hear about it," Hannah stated. "Like a two year old could climb Mount Everest. It's just not interesting anymore."
Caleb laughed. "Or a grandma could jump out of planes."
"Not interesting."
"But safe. People could live longer."

I could see the points both were making.

I wonder if the presidential debates will be this interesting...or this civil.

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.

Summer Vacation.

What will my children remember from their family vacations?

We are lucky. Our kids are great travelers. They are wonderful on long car trips. They know how to pack books, drawing implements and car-games (Having their own i-pods and DSi game systems helps when all else fails--sometimes sooner.) Every year I pick a book to read as a family and I haven't gone wrong yet. Last year it was The Graveyard Book. The year before that was Little House on the Prairie--not an overwhelming success with Caleb until Pa got eaten by wolves (my addition.)

This year we read Holes by Louis Sachar. 

The kids were inspired by the book

We also traveled in a foreign country. I hope that they learned something from that. Not everyone will speak your language, but anyone can be your friend. Communication doesn't have to rely on words, although a little bit of Allons nager does help.(Caleb learned this phrase. It means "lets go swimming." He used it a lot. He still remembers it.)

nos amis

We were lucky this year to have traveling companions. Our pals Rosie and Michele from Winnipeg, Manitoba made their way eastward and played tour guides through Canada for us, and campfire buddies in Maine. Michele is an artist, so she and Hannah had a lot to talk about. At least Hannah had a lot to talk about. Michele was great at listening. The two of them worked on projects by the light of a lantern as the rest of us enjoyed the campfire. Win-win!

But Michele wasn't the only one to inspire my daughter! Hannah learned a new move from Rosie. I like to call this move, "The unexpected sign."

The master

The apprentice.

There are often creative ways to punish children who misbehave when you are on vacation. Like this lovely bubble at L.L.Bean. Unfortunately the kids actually liked this. Especially Hannah who has a soft spot for little fishes. And big ones. And cute ones. And ugly ones.

Caleb is not so fond of fish.

Traveling can always be fun as long as you do it with people you love, travel to places you enjoy, and keep an open mind for new adventures.Coming out of Quebec back south we drove through New Hampshire. It was some of the most beautiful country imaginable. We had never seen the White Mountains before. If you remove our huge heads, they are behind us, and they are stunning--trust me. We will have to go back to New Hampshire to get better photos and to do some hiking, biking and whatever it is that New Hampshirites (New Hampshirinos? New Hampsherians?)do for recreation.

The Band of Stalwart Companions

But, no matter where we go, I don't think we'll find better traveling companions. Our Boler Buddies (Michele and Rosie) turned a good time into a really great a memorable time.

Honestly, I was having a hard time planning this year's family trip. It was my first vacation without Mom waiting at home to hear that we had gotten home safely, to cluck over the amount of money we spent and to kindly indulge in viewing our vacation photos. Rosie was a hero, rescuing me from my doldrums of vacation ennui by planning the portion of the trip that took us through Ottawa, Quebec (visiting her cousins at Vignobles St. Remi--Bonjour to Natalie and Fabien, our wonderful hosts, and their beautiful, friendly kids) and then to Freeport, Maine where we camped and visited L.L.Bean and enjoyed campfires and Lobster (although I think at least one couple at the Lobster Pound of Unimaginable Carnage* might never be the same.)

What will my kids remember from all of this? Probably the fact that their mother has the ability to embarrass them anywhere in two countries.

 I think that they're just lucky I didn't find a "Free Tibet" sign. I mean, have you ever checked out the airfares to Tibet? I'll take it free any time.We can test our non-lingual foreign language skills there next.

Happy summer vacation.

*"the Lobster Pound of Unimaginable Carnage" is not the name of the lobster pound, just a description of Rosie and Michele's first experience in eating live lobster--which was actually dead at the time.