Nerd Joy

This may sound a bit narcissistic, but I love having a kid who's so much like me. Now, I didn't mean it the way it probably sounds. See, I have an insatiable need to learn things. I was probably a frustrating student. If I didn't want to learn it (*cough cough* MATH), I threw up a mental block, but if I DID want to learn about something, I'd read and read until I'd soaked up all I could on the subject. Thankfully, Goober got a love of learning from me AND an aptitude for math from his father. He also got an insane capacity for all things science. Scratching my head over that one.
Anyway, I was making lentil soup for dinner and Goober asked me why we've been eating so much soup and so many bean-based meals lately. I explained a little about eating inexpensively while still eating nutritiously and then showed him some "Clara" videos on Youtube. Clara is a little Italian grandmother in her nineties living in Upstate NY. Her grandson, Christopher Cannucciari came up with the idea to film his grandmother talking about and cooking depression-era meals. Not only is she cute, fun and even soothing to watch, especially if you're missing your grandmothers, but there's a lot of wisdom in her little stories.
Of course, his next question was naturally, "what was the depression?". YAY!!!! Google field trip!!! I searched for a bit and came up with a neat little documentary on the depression available on Netflix. It's made up of lots of news reels from the era. Of course, we'll fill in with chapters from his American History textbooks and some fiction from the time-period, but for the time-being, we're snuggled up in front of the computer having some mother-son nerd time together- well, right now, we're in the intermission as we prepare to have dinner and I thought I'd pop on quickly and share my joy. 'Cause the only thing better than nerd-joy is blogging about it. 8)