That's Not Your Mommy Anymore

Greg Mogk, author of That's Not Your Mommy Anymore has taken a very prestigious role in our family of late.  You see, Urban is OBSESSED with all things zombie.  It started with Plants vs. Zombies on the XBox.  It seemed innocuous enough.  Then came Zombie Smash on the iPad.  Then Zombie Dice.  Then a constant stream of zombie talk.  You would be shocked how much my 4-year-old has gleaned about zombie lore on his own.  And one thing Brett and I have always done is to try and immerse ourselves in Urban's interest du jour.

So, since May was Zombie Awareness month, and we are trying to encourage Urban's early reading skills anyway, I decided it was a great idea to get him Mogk's book.  Yep.  Great idea.  We now read it every night.  Every night, AFTER we play a rousing game of dice, that is.  Zombie Dice, of course.  (but, I must say that Urban can add and subtract up to 13 without even thinking about it.)

And now we can no longer just walk to the bathroom to brush teeth, we have to have "slow" races because, "zombies shamble, Mama.  That means slow-walk."  (Thanks, Mogk.)  So we shamble to the bathroom to scrub our zombie choppers and rinse with "brain juice".  (That's mouthwash for you non-zombies.)  We read That's Not Your Mommy Anymore in chorus, and then it's a zombie-back-ride into bed.  Mommy-zombie (that's me) can never quite reach the yummy, tender brains on her back.  They are always just out of reach.  Ah, zombie culture... you have taken over my house!

So, the other day as we were sitting on the couch, Urban was explaining to me how cool math is.  It's a hard sell, I assure you, and he looks at me and says, "You know, Mama, zombies aren't real."

"They're not?"

"No.  They're 'maginary like unicorns and sharks."

"Urban, sharks are real."

"What?  Nooooo... They're just on TV."

"No, they're real.  Don't you remember seeing them at the zoo?"

"Yes.  But those were TV sharks, on the big giant TV.  That one tried to eat us, but he hit the TV screen and went away."

"OK, he didn't try to eat us buddy, he just was interested in looking at us.  And, that was an aquarium, like at the doctor's office, only bigger.  See?"

"Mmm.  Kinda.  So sharks are real?"

"Yes."

"But zombies are 'maginery."

"Yes."

"But giants are real.  Cause they live in the clouds and grow corn and chickens."

"Um..."

"Yeah, really big chickens.  But just one corn."

"Well..."

"Yep.  Giants and sharks are real."

"Sure, buddy, whatever you say."

At least we don't have fears of zombie attack, right?  Although, now I do get nervous when the clouds are super fluffy.  I don't even want to think about what happens to the chicken droppings when the giants clean the coops.

As seen on TV

On Saturday we went as a family to the Forest Lake Applebees for a fundraising breakfast for the Forest Lake Girls' Synchronized Swim Team.  Urban's cousins, Stephanie and Josephine, swim on the team which took 3rd at state last week.  Urban is OBSESSED with his cousins, Stephanie and Josephine.  If you say either of their names around him, he turns all pink and gets coy.  It's absolutely adorable.

Of course, Urban is also obsessed with older girls and attention, so this breakfast was right up his alley.  By the end of the meal, he had 6 high school girls gathered around him as he told stories and did his prat falls.  He even asked them all to smell his cheeks.  (He had put aftershave on that morning with Daddy because, "girls like it when you smell nice.")

At the end of the breakfast, Josephine and her dad, Brett's cousin Patrick, invited us back to their house.  Urban was ecstatic.  Josephine asked Urban if he had ever seen a bunny before.  He looked at her and said, "I've seen one on TV!"  You see, Josephine raises chickens and rabbits.



So, apparently, I am completely failing my son.  We live in a metro area, yes, but we do not live in the concrete jungle.  There are wild rabbits everywhere.  How has he never seen one?  How have I missed pointing out rabbits??  Urban is clearly living up to his name.

So, anyway, off we went to Josephine's house to see the bunnies and chickens.  Urban was in heaven.  He held REAL (squeal!!) chickens and a duck.  He chased a rooster who "cock-a-doodle-dooed" at him the whole time.  And (swoon) he helped Josephine with the rabbits.  By the end of the day, he had crawled inside the hutch with them and was feeding them grass and flowers from his hand.  It was one of his best days ever.  And, as we were leaving, Josephine gave us a carton of eggs from her REAL chickens.

Urban looked at me all serious and said, "Mama, these are special eggs because they are REAL eggs.  Not the store kind.  REAL ones from REAL chickens, Mama.  Real ones."

So, wait, they are real eggs??  Wow.  I'm glad they aren't pretend like those ones I pay $3 for every week.  Now I have the pressure of doing something awesome with the REAL eggs.  He is dying to eat them.  Do I boil them?  Make them into a cake or sweet bread?  Do they become cookies?  I have to figure it out before the REAL eggs become REAL yucky.

And, let me tell you, this has done nothing to dissuade my desire for city chickens.  You hear, me Brett?  I think we need chickens at our new house.  ::grin::

Crazy Magnet

I have a gift.  I have cultivated it for years.  It's a natural gift, one I have tried hard to reject, to cover, to mask, but when you have a gift... people know.  They can sense it, you know?  Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to cover it up, it comes out even stronger than had you just accepted it in the first place.  So, yes, you who know me have already figured it out, but I AM A CRAZY MAGNET.

Some of you have witnessed this phenomenon first hand.  It happens most often near bus stops, but, really, they come out of the woodwork wherever I go.  They tell me their stories.  They engage me.  There is irony here.  I have developed this very closed, dower demeanor in public.  I don't talk to anyone except service providers when I'm wandering about.  I'm not a chatter in public places.  I'm hardly a chatter anywhere, really.  But the demeanor that says, "Whoa! Disengage!" to your average person looking for socialization and camaraderie, says, "Totally talk to this person.  They are fascinated by your antics," to your garden-variety crazy.

My best crazies I met when I rode the bus to and from downtown every day.  I began to categorize them.  There are always mumblers and drunks, you know, the harmless ones.  They would usually sit next to me and begin ranting.  It became somehow known that I was a kind of crazy-whisperer on the 12, and the bus drivers would often give me silent cues to "help direct" said person off at the next stop.  I could usually oblige.

Then you have the dramatists.  (They are secretly me favorite.)  They are fascinating and harmless.  There was "the chief" - he wore feathers all over his body that he picked up on the road and walked with a garbage poker.  There was "safety guy" - he wore about 20 blaze orange safety vests piled together.  He told me he wanted to be visible when he wandered from St. Paul to Minneapolis and back everyday.  That's just plain smart.  Then there was "the human chalkboard" - he asked everyone he met to sign him.  He was almost always covered in signatures... his clothes, bags, skin, everything.

But my favorite of all time was the "E. Coli Outbreak Lady."  She was a gem.  She stood on a corner with her hand poised like a puppet and wrapped in a doll dress.  Her ratty hair hung down to her knees, and she swayed as she shouted like a sidewalk evangelist, "E. COLI OUTBREAK!  SAY 'NO' TO PEACHES AND STRAWBERRIES!  E. COLI OUTBREAK!  SAY 'NO' TO KISSING!  EEEEE COLI OUTBREAK!  SAY 'NO' TO DATE RAPE!!!"  Very sound advice.

So, although I have yet to figure out a way to use my gift for the betterment of mankind, I have, at the very least, gathered some excellent stories to tell at parties.  Do you have any Crazy Magnet stories?  I'd love to hear them!

Hosta Haters

As I was driving to work this morning, listening to The Current, as I do every morning, the substitute host Jackie Fuller made a major confession.  One that I thought would get one run out of Minnesota by mobs brandishing pitchforks and torches.  She hates hostas.  Yep, that's right, those squat little plants that coat the suburban landscape of Minnesota shooting their alien little flower appendages up waving in the breeze every summer.  Well, world, if Jackie can admit it, so can I.  I hate hostas.  To the point I have stricken potential homes from the list purely do to the abundance of hostas.

What!? you might say.  But these plants are hearty!  They'll grow anywhere!  You never have to tend them!

Yep.  Don't care.  I think they are weird and not terribly attractive.  I kind of take issue with any flora that starts as a little plump mass and shoot flags into the air like Yosemite Sam's pistols, "Shoot!"  But that's just my opinion.

So, I hope my Minnesota card isn't revoked because I have come clean with my dark little secret.  If there are hostas in my yard, I dig them up and send them to hosta heaven...or anyone who wants them.  There.  I said.  Now I feel better.

Problem Solving

I just read the opinion piece, "College is a Waste of Time" by Dale Stephens.  It's a fascinating take on higher education and has a lot of really valid points.  In a lot of ways it flies in the face of how I was raised and the way I mapped my life, but it also speaks to many of the values that I hope to impart to my own boys.

Growing up, there was no question that I would go to college.  Not because it was crammed down my throat, or because I was given no choice in the matter.  It just was.  My mother was the first of her family to go to college, and my father earned his degree as well.  My mom was a high school counselor, and one of her many roles was to prepare kids for college, help them find the right place and get their applications in order.  It never came up as a topic for discussion.  I just knew, that for me, school would be 16 years (or more) and not 12.

Even as a kid I would pretend to be a college student.  I would look for apartments in the paper and page through old catalogs that Mom would have around.   OK, I totally admit that I was a strange child.  But it was fanciful and exciting for me.  The irony in it all, is that I did everything in my power to get through college as quickly as possible.  I got focused on my career path by my senior year in high school.  I knew I was going into the arts in some fashion, and by the end of my senior year, I knew I would be a graphic designer.

I chose a college, after dozens of campus tours, based on the breadth of classes and not the specialties.  I decided I wanted to know more than color theory and perspective.  Kind of like my oldest, I wanted "to know everything."  I wanted to draw theories of my own and gain perspective on my expanding world.  Some classes did that for me.  Others did not.  There was a direct correlation between the amount of time I spent on a class and the amount of problem solving and critical thinking involved in said class.

The graphic design curriculum was relatively new when I started school (the internet didn't even have pictures until half-way through my freshman year), and the small class size worked to my advantage.  We were able to shape the class into what we wanted it to be.  We began freelancing as a group by the time I was a sophomore, and one of my classmates even dropped out to start a very successful internet design company.  And by the time I was a junior, after taking summer classes and studying in Europe, I had completed my requirements and was able to go to part-time status to work almost full-time at my internship.

Sometimes Brett, who is also a graphic designer, and I sit and talk about the classes we took in college.  One stands out specifically, Art History.  In Brett's art history classes, there were projects and discussions.  In mine there was rote memorization.  Don't get me wrong, I can memorize with the best of them, but what stuck with me from that class was not artistic movements and influential artists, but a dark room with a slide projector rhythmically flashing images onto the wall and an overwhelming feeling, of "how will this apply to my life?"

Now that I've added "mom" to my job title, I think a lot about my boys.  (Obviously.)  Brett and I talk continuously about college funds and such, and I wonder, is that where they will really end up?  Is that what will be best for them?  Is it bad if it's not?  As my career has progressed, I have found myself more than once in meetings thinking, "how is it that you not only can't see the problem here, but also can not see the solution?"  It seems so obvious to me.

And, after reading this piece on college, it seems even more clear.  Stephens is right, we are often times not teaching our children how to think, but how to regurgitate.  It is important to learn about the past, to understand the facts and know the parts and pieces of things.  Those bits are integral to problem solving as well, but if we do not teach our children how to take that knowledge and create new things from it, where will we be?  Will we be in a world of Hollywood Blockbuster-type living where every "great new thing" is just the reprocessing of a truly great new thing form 20+ years ago?  I don't want to live in that world.  I already saw that movie... the first time.

I want my children to imagine, create and push the boundaries of possibility.  I want my kids to be able to say, "Yes, I know how it was done, but what if we did this?"  And I want my kids to know that if college is not the place that will make that kind of thinking a reality for them, that's OK with me.  And any college fund that may materialize in the next 18 years can be used for education – whether that education is in a classroom or on a train or the side of a mountain or even in their own basement is totally up to them.  I want them to learn how to think.  Period.

The Weatherman

Urban started talking when he was about 6 months old.  It sounds ridiculous, but it's true.  He said kitty (we have 3), ball and bus and lots of nonsense garble in between.  The kid has had a lot to say from day one.  And, I promise you, he has not shut up since.

One thing he talks about a lot is the weather.  He always has an eye on the sky, and we get a running report of whatever he sees.  We try to give him as much information as we can about weather and how it works –   what makes snow, where hail comes from, why rainbows happen – anything and everything he might wonder about.  He has gotten to the point where he sits and watches the weather reports on television, which can be a little nerve-wracking lately with all of the severe weather we have been having, but kinda cool nonetheless.

This past winter, Urban informed me that he likes it when it's cloudy because it means it will be warmer.  That's true.  The clouds help keep what little heat we might have from escaping back into the atmosphere.  "But," he says, "they have to be cumulous clouds, not cirrus clouds.  Because those are too high and wispy."  Right.

But these days, when the weather has has turned warmer, there is a direct line in Urban's mind to The Splash Pad.  He is definitely my warm weather kid.  (He also informed us this winter he wants to move to the desert.  "At least it doesn't snow there," was his reasoning.)  He now insists on watching the news every night before supper to check to see how many splash pad days there will be in the coming 7.  He listens intently to Sven Sundgaard explain the daily highs and lows, whether there will be cloud cover or sun, and if there is a chance of stormy weather.  Then he looks at me very seriously while walking over to the TV screen, points at the weekly projection and says, "See, Mama, 2 days of splash pad, then 2 days of rain, then 3 days of splash pad."

"Right." I agree, thinking to myself about all the other things I have to do that don't involve running through community sprinklers, but this is his life right now.  He starts school in a month, so he should take advantage of his splash pad time while he can.

"So, Urban," I say, "are you going to be a weather man when you grow up?"

He thinks for a moment and says, "Yes.  And a foot doctor and a girl."

That's my boy.

Garage Sales, Cragslist and Consignment... OH MY!

What's the best way to get rid of stuff?  Tell people you have it.  At least, that's what I've found.  This weekend we really started our purge.  Brett and I spent most of Friday night sorting and boxing some of our stuff.  This was after the boys were in bed, of course because who can get anything done with one constantly trying to toss himself down the stairs and the other DEMANDING we play Zombie Dice "NOW!"?  By Saturday morning, we had one pile to take to consignment shops, another to donate and yet another to take to our friends' garage sale that morning.

In the process, I spent quite a bit of time gathering all the pieces of one of our china sets and tidily packing it into two diaper boxes.  (Classy, I know.)  Brett and I had picked up the set at a garage sale ourselves, and the plan was to load it up and sell it at one again.  We paid $60 for it, so we figured someone else might too.  For added bargaining power, I decided to hop on ebay and see how much it was going for there.  Well, I discovered it was going for A LOT more than 60 bucks!  More like 10 bucks a plate!  Our sorting stopped for a while as we discussed what to do.  We really want to get rid of extraneous stuff before the move, but we also would love to have some more money to spend on our decorating projects.  What to do?  What to do?  After a debate, we decided to go ahead and move the plates and put them on ebay ourselves.  It's a gamble.  We'll see what happens.

The rest of the stuff got packed up with the boys in our little Scion XA and hauled over to South Minneapolis where we made a whopping $5.  What a days' work!  The rain and cold kept the buyers at bay, and Brett and I realized, we're really more garage sale shoppers than havers.  We re-packed the Scion and donated the lot.

Next stop: Craigslist.  After a small discussion about, "what will we sleep/eat on," I listed our table and bedroom furniture on this amazing site.  I have had a love affair with craigslist for years, and it never fails to amaze me the things the practically fly out of your house and the things that leave you hauling them to the curb while scratching your head.  The table was gone in a day, the boys' blue dresser took about a week.  The couch is still in the garage...  And, anybody need a modern bedroom set?

Amazing.

So, now at least we have a nice, open space to pile boxes in the dining area.  Does this mean I can start more packing?  JOY!  I love progress.  I want to see less and less stuff and more and more floor/cardboard.  Onward and upward, family!  Onward and upward!