When
I was a kid my favorite summer memories, my favorite anytime memories
actually, centered around some project that Mom would do with my
brother and me. Sometimes it was making a fun dessert or planting
something. She taught us to crochet and hook latch. She was always good
for a board game. When I finally had my son. I thought that was how it
was supposed to be done. From the time he was old enough to set up with a
project we would spend our free time creating or playing or just
learning something fun.
From
the beginning I was met with incredulous people, those who thought
it was amazing that my three or four year old would make his own
Christmas presents or be able to explain to strangers how his volcano
works. Still, I never really noticed how odd most people think that sort
of thing is until he started making videos and it really became apparent
last summer when he started his blog. He had been making videos of his
science projects for years already and a blog just seemed to be a
natural extension of that activity. It did mean that his projects were
more structured and therefore more of my participation was required, if
only to document his fun. It also meant that more and more of our
activities were being done in the front or back yard, in full view of
our neighbors.
We
aren't unfriendly with our neighbors but we aren't the best of friends
either. Our relations are usually restricted to cool nods in passing.
The kids take their cues from their elders and my son always seems to
play outside of the established groups, until he drags out one of his
projects. He is then awash with kids wanting to see what he is building
or testing, or they want to join in on whatever art project he has
going. I don't mind. Kids are naturally curious and don't let adult
attitudes stand in the way of natural learning. However, I am always
struck by the parent's reaction. First, surprisingly to me, they are in
shock that their kid would be interested in learning how a homemade
submarine or a fizzy tablet pop rocket works. Then they express
amazement that I am so hands on. It is so cool how I always do these
kinds of things with my son and isn't it a lot of work?
It goes back to I don't know any other way to do it.
When I was a kid and I had a question my mom always found an answer.
When my brother wanted to know how something worked, she arranged a trip
the library. She found a way to help us figure it out. She was so hands
on that when my brother's third grade teacher, two months before the
end of the school year, admitted to my mom that she couldn't teach my
brother anything due his lack of reading skills, that she dragged out my
old kindergarten homework and used it to write a book to teach my
brother how to read. That is just what moms do. Right? I am in awe of
what my mom could have accomplished if she had had Google and Wiki as a
starting point. In the course of my internet hoarding, I have run across
many wonderful mothers who are just as hands on and love to share that
fact with the world. I believe that given the right circumstances, my
mom would have been the same. She was a mom before her time.
Lian made his first home video when he was four years
old. He taped an old camera to one of his toy trucks and called it the
Mars Rover and gave a good age appropriate telling of what Rover's job
is, while our neighbors looked on in wonder. One would think that by now I
would be past my private snickers and giggles at their reactions to
Lian's projects. Of course, one would think that by now they would cease
to be amazed to find him hard at work creating something, giving the
viewers in his video camera a blow by blow description.
Maybe
it is just that the projects keep getting bigger. Today our summer
memory was building a river system from its source waterfall through the
flood plains all the way to its mouth at the ocean. It was a huge
project encompassing several boards, a roll of aluminum foil, a roll of
duct tape and several garbage bags. It took a couple of hours to build
and gathered a bit of an audience by the end. At the beginning however,
it was hilarious to watch grown people surreptitiously trying to spy on
what we were building, whispering comments to each other, loud enough to
make Shakespeare proud. I suppose I could take the high road and just
assume that they were simply basking in the brilliance that is my little
angel. After all, maybe there aren't a lot of kids who attempt to build
a river for fun. Still it isn't like this is a new occurrence.
Sadly, our river failed. It flooded out in the flood
plains and never made it to the ocean. Our boat capsized in one of the
resulting lakes.
Our day of memory making was a complete success. The
floods were simply a teaching tool, since rivers do tend to flood and
change course quite often. My little engineer is hard a t work trying to
come up with a redesign that will make his boat float to the ocean and
we have several elements that did work and can be reused. Plus we got a
great blog post out of it. Two, if you count this one. Today was a summer
memory that my mom would have been proud of. I think my neighbors made a
memory or two themselves. =)
So, what is your favorite summer memory?
