Mini Van Feed: Speedometers vs Scales

In the car today after neither one of us could figure out what the other was talking about for about 20 minutes (turns out, he was talking about the speedometer, and I was talking about the scale in my bathroom).

Me “You know what Van? You are funny. You know that?”

Him “Sometimes.”

Me “Some people think your mom is funny. What do you think of that?”

Him “You should tell them that you got it from your son.”

Mini Van Feed: Capoeira, Hip Hop Chess, and the Adventures of Mr. Potato Head

This past Saturday Van’s Capoeira class did a demo at a Hip Hop Chess event in downtown Raleigh. I am only recently becoming familiar with Capoeira, and I didn’t have a clue what Hip Hop Chess was. The event was held in a large meeting room behind the IMAX theater at Marbles Children’s Museum.

A minister-type man kicked off the event with a rather extended 30 minute talk about “why we were all there”. I originally thought the purpose was to showcase different martial arts and dance troupes, but quickly realized that was only the half of it. The group that organized the event had a larger mission in mind. The philosophy behind the mission was that teaching at-risk kids chess would greatly improve their life-decision making skills.

There were several things that the speaker said that struck me.

1. He was able to tell all the teenagers to “leave their cool at the door”, and do it in a really-not-so-cheessy sounding way, where you could tell they were all listening and would actually comply. Even I was thinking, you know what, I think that I too,  will leave what I have left of my cool at the door. We had to do this to allow us to meet someone new.

2. He explained why learning to play chess was crucial. He said that the skill of learning to think through all of the consequences when making a decision, as is done when one plays chess,  helps you become a better man or woman. Plus they had video footage of the Wu Tang Clan doing it, you can let your cool back in now.

The RZA of Wu-tang Clan wins the championship belt at the first annual Hip Hop Chess Federation's Chess Kings Invitational.

3. Towards the end of his talk, he started the poem, “The hand that rocks the cradle…” and stopped. The entire crowd responded with, “rules the world.” How did I somehow miss this piece of language? The way he spoke about this particular passage had me in tears in less than 5 minutes.

I like to think that I was on the verge of tears because my smoocher was nervous. He is 6. He has never been on stage. He hates crowds. He hates noise. He is new to capoeira. It wasn’t him that was nervous, I was nervous.

After the man finished speaking, he introduced the teacher of Van’s Capoeira class. He was great. He took a lot of time to explain the history and instruments of Capoeira. It is a martial art invented in Brazil by slaves from Africa. They would practice self-defense moves in public and disguise them as dance. The instruments are basic yet effective.

He also explained he had given all of his students Portuguese nicknames. He went around the semi-circle and told the audience each student’s nickname. There was a kid nicknamed “Viking” and another called “Battery”, and then he came to Van. He said that his nickname was “Beedu”. It means the wise one. A funny kind of emotion is being a proud parent for seemingly silly reasons.

It is all pretty neat to watch. The class all took turns sparring with eachother and the crowd was into it. At the very end Van’s teacher whispered to him and asked if he wanted to spar and he declined.  He was brave for standing up there.

What does this have to do with the adventures of Mr. Potato Head? Being so close to Marbles Children’s Museum, we *had* to go there afterwards. The exhibit this month is the Adventures of Mr. Potato Head. Just had to give a shout out to Hasbro, the exhibit is brilliance in marketing. Lenovo should sponsor travelling children’s museum exhibits.

Mini Van Feed: Fried Chicken Floor

Van put a giant Post It note on the TV that reads, “I like fried chicken”. OK, my friend, duly noted. I think I am going to start leaving Post Its around too. Maybe I leave one on his forehead, Better off Dead style, that reads, “I like to see the floor of your room”.

Mini Van Feed: Smokin’ Pancake Balls

Van and I went to Denny’s tonight to get breakfast for dinner… something he absolutely loves. If he had it his way, he would eat breakfast for dinner every night. I thought Van would like Denny’s because a colleague mentioned that they make robot pancakes for kids.

I haven’t been to a Denny’s since I was around 10 years old when I was stuffed into a minivan with my sisters and cousins and we drove from Athens to Orlando to go to Disney World one summer. I remember it being so hot and miserable… and being so jealous of my older cousin Nano who listened to Yaz  on her new walkman (the band, not the birth control), while I had to listen to whatever my mom and Aunt Nano picked on the radio. We may have hit a Denny’s more than once on that trip.

From what I can remember, nothing about the Denny’s has changed, layout is the same and the menu looks only slightly varied. And did you know people can still smoke in there? Smoking in restaurants is illegal in Raleigh, but somehow Denny’s is exempt? There was no one in there (it was 5:30 afer all), which made it feel a tad creepy, and for it was for sure unhealthy. It was one of those cases where you are like, well, there is nothing good for me here, may as well just go all out.

So. Van had these deep fried pancake balls rolled in cinnamon sitting on whipped cream with a side of sausage and bacon, which I think was supposed to resemble some sort of football scenario, but didn’t at all. And I had a cheddar bacon burger with onion rings which I must admit, was delicious. Toward the end of dinner, Van asked me to try some of the pancake balls. He told me I had to dip it into the syrup. He lifted up the syrup container on his plate and started to hand it to me, then he took it back and looked underneath it, and said very seriously,  ”Does this look like a parallelogram to you?”

Mini Van Feed: Serendipitous Football Donuts

Van and I went to Target this evening to buy a Shaun the Sheep dvd and had a situation with an exploding watermelon Icee in the Starbucks. When we got back in the car, he eased himself back into his booster seat, and said loudly, “Well that was serendipitous!”

Tonight, while tucking him, he asked me if we could have football donuts for breakfast.

Mini Van Feed: I can’t get up unless I think I am a Penguin

So Van routinely gets into my bed and talks jibberish early in the morning. Most mornings I can’t make sense of it. This morning it seemed more interesting. He does always come in, and says “GOOD MORNING MOMMY!!!!” very enthusiastically, and I mean, VERY enthusiatically, it is actually THE best, so we will start there.

Me: Good Morning Van, did you sleep ok? Did you have good dreams?

Van: Yes, but the usual happened.

Me: The usual?

Van: Yes. Well, you know how your legs are heavy in the morning, and you don’t feel like you can walk, but you want to get up?”

Me: Yes.

Van: Yes, well, I have figured out what that is and what to do. When I wake up, I pretend like I am a penguin, because penguins have weird legs, and they can’t walk normally. So I pretend like I am a penguin, and then I am able to waddle over to your room and get in your bed, and after that my legs feel normal.

Mini Van Feed: Volcanoes in Ohio

While doing homework this week, Van and I had to fill out a “Getting to Know You” worksheet for his teacher. One of the questions was, “Where would you like to visit?”

Me: So, Van, where would you like to visit?

Van: Ohio

Me: Ohio?

Van: Yes, Ohio.

Me: Why?

Van: (laughs hystertically) I have no idea.

Me: That’s so weird.

Van: (very serious) They have volcanoes there, don’t they?

Mini Van Feed: Bowling & Bait

This weekend was the last official weekend of summer, so on Saturday I asked Van what he would like to do as the grand finale.  ”Bowling.” he says. It was almost like he had the answer ready before I asked the question. Bowling? I think to myself, he has maybe bowled once in his life, where did bowling come from. On the way there, he found his way into my purse and scored some gum. When I gave him the eye for getting the gum without asking, he tells me, “Gum makes me bowl like crazy.”

On Sunday, Van wanted to go fishing. He hasn’t been fishing that much, but he talks about it all the time. Van already has a pole, but I decided to be a sport and get a fishing pole too, and a fishing licence so that I could join him.

The thing that I always forget about fishing is that it is really not my thing. It’s not that I don’t like it, I don’t mind it at all. I just don’t think fishing likes me. When I was a kid, I was swimming and someone cast upon me. I spent hours that day having people attempt to dig the hook out of my head. Because of that event, I have a real fear of fishing hooks, so every time Van cast, or for that matter even swung the pole around at all, I was like “hit the decks!” I don’t think I am being overly dramatic either, I really think that I may have some sort of magnetic field that attracts fishing hooks. Today while stringing the poles, I had hooks get stuck in my hand, in my leg and lastly in my flip flop, to the point that it became unwearable. I had to walk all the way back up the trail (and drive home) with one flip flop on which of course prompts all kinds of commentary when you are holding fishing poles.

In addition to the fear-of-hooks situation, I also had difficulty with the casting. I threaded Van’s pole and handed it to him, within two minutes he was casting like the fishing boy savant. Meanwhile I have a hook stuck in my thumb and when I finally get it loose, I go to cast and the entire reel comes flying off in three pieces and gets thrown out into the lake. When Van asks me, “Was that a fish!?” I had to tell him it was not a fish, but rather that on his mother’s first cast she sent the entire reel into the lake in pieces. How does that even happen with a new fishing rod?

So mostly I just sat on a towel and watched Van cast like an expert and come over every once in a while to switch hooks or bait. It was like he had been fishing for years. Once when he was picking out different bait he said, “I like big bait. It really suits me.”  ”Sure.” I responded. And on the walk back up the path, he turned to me and said, “I would like it if we could do this every Tuesday.”

Mini Van Feed: Breakin’

This morning I told Van that he would be spending the day at the pool with his best pal Elliot. He got very excited and broke into dance. He stopped for a moment, looked up and gave me a very serious look.

Him: I think I might be the best breakdancer.

Me: Well don’t hold back.

Him: I got more moves, I just don’t want to show you them yet.

I am guessing that it is not you

Actual conversation with the car people yesterday:

Me: blah blah… i talked to some guy and he said he would leave the part at the front desk.

Him: do you know who you talked to?

Me: yeah, it was the guy with the beard.

Him: oh, well there are two of us here. do you know which one?