Smarty Pants

You know you listen to too much NPR news when your 4 year old goes around singing things like "stimulus package! stimulus package!" and "nasdaq!" to the tune of "A Spoon Full of Sugar". A wee bit of irony there actually, I guess. And she asked me what the stimulus package was, so I gave her what I thought would be a good age-appropriate (generic) answer. She stared at me blankly for a minute and then said "you mean like for if the banks and the schools don't have enough money?" And again I was reminded of how much does not go over her head. Yikes.

Some culture for the kids.

On Saturday the kids and I took advantage of a free day at the Fine Arts Center since we aren't members anymore. Amelia and I have been there before and of course she does great, but to be quite honest I was skeptical of how pleasant our visit would be with Milo. He was an absolute doll though, I couldn't have asked for more. He sat perfectly content in the sling for the 2+ hours we meandered through the exhibits, he watched people, pointed at and talked about a few pieces that caught his eye, and toward the end when he started to get bored he experimented with the acoustics in the rooms a bit. His favorite was a huge painting with a big dog. We walked by it a few times and he pointed to it and made his "woof woof" sound. Really cute.

I am not at a point in my life where I could give any sort of intelligent commentary on the art I saw... I can barely remember what I saw. The visit was mainly for the kids. I'll tell you what I do remember though: I remember Amelia had some pretty intelligent comments and some pretty strong opinions on some stuff. The way kids take things in sometimes surprises me.... we saw an installation piece that creeped me out a bit but didn't bother Amelia at all. (She's been having nightmares and I was a bit paranoid that hanging around this particular piece would create more, but she took it in completely innocently.) It was titled "The Discarded", set up in a corner, took up about a fourth of the whole room and included mainly old doll parts; heads, limbless bodies, etc. Oh, and plastic chili peppers among other things. Maybe Amelia was immune to the creepiness because of her own barbies that have been inadvertently decapitated, I don't know. But then on the flip-side, there were a couple rooms with what I thought of as your run-of-the-mill portrait paintings and landscapes, which she pretty much hated and even said "I don't like it in here I want to get out of this room right now." So we did. She asked a lot of good questions and got what I hope were satisfactory answers, laughed at some stuff, made some thoughtful remarks, and had an overall good time. We left in time to run around in the grass outside and take in a couple of the big outdoor sculptures before it got dark. I suppose that was actually Milo's favorite part.

This was Amelia's favorite, and the only thing I was brave enough to take a picture of. (I have no idea if photos are allowed or frowned upon or what. I saw other people doing it but it didn't feel right.) It's a collaborative piece by kids who take art classes at the center. Pretty cool.