geography for breakfast

this morning, after cajoling pooka into having not one, but TWO servings of fruit with breakfast, we were discussing the possibility of going out to dinner tomorrow night. kisu's instructor at school wants us to go on a family double date.
i asked pooka if she had any suggestions for restaurants. she named two mexican places and frank's, our favorite local diner. she doesn't really like mexican food, but she loves to watch them make fresh tortillas. the one time she deigned to try a homemade taco, she insisted on putting carrots in it. i'm not sure why, since carrots are at best a hit or miss veg with her. i asked her if she was going to try a taco at the restaurant this time and she said only if they put carrots on it. when i replied that real tacos don't normally contain carrots, she said , "then why do they bother to have mexican restaurants in michigan?"

ummm, well, "because people like to have mexican food."

"then why don't they just go to mexico?"

so i pulled out the placemat that we bought when she was first using the table to eat. (because i rarely ever buy anything that can't be turned to some educational purpose, even if it takes 3 years to materialize.) it has a map of the US on one side, and the state flags on the other. this is our first opportunity to use it as a teaching tool. it's the first time she has really shown interest in it. so of course, i showed her where mexico is in relation to michigan, and told her that it was an entirely separate country. we talked about the relative time to drive there, compared to our driving time to buffalo to see gamma. we talked about time zones, and where alaska and hawaii are. and we started to discuss the symbols that represent each state, such as peaches for georgia, the statue of liberty for new york, and cacti for arizona. this was a very productive/educational morning, totally out of the blue. i am having one of my 'fulfilled' moods today. i didn't even mind that going over these things made me late for work, especially since the crappy weather doubled my lateness. oh, well, at least i had a reasonable excuse if anybody at work was actually keeping track.

***

i have a doctor's appt this afternoon. i will update later.

~update: i am at 1 cm, but the doctor thinks that i will go at least to term, since i was induced overdue with pooka. april here we come....