The Princess came to my room last evening, threw herself down on the floor and started saying, "There are two kinds of bears - teddy bears and bears." Then she said, "Oh yeah, grizzly. There are three kinds of bears - teddy bears, bears and grizzly." She was talking to herself, rolling around on her back, holding both feet in her hands, up in the air. I didn't have the time to clarify this "bear" list and tell her about polar bears, panda bears, black bears, koala bears, etc., because God knows, then we'd have been talking for an hour about all the bears. I decided that I would tell her later. I just let her continue to talk to herself - something she is quite happy doing.
Speaking of stuffed bears, one day, a couple of months ago, my mother came over to our house and caught me in the process of putting yet more things (boxes and furniture - even some stuffed bears) in the garage, to then be donated to Goodwill. She asked what I was doing. I explained that I was cycling stuff out of my house - moving out old stuff in order to make room for the new stuff.
In my mother's generation, their houses were set up a certain way and they pretty much didn't change things. My mother's wasn't a generation that felt the need to go out and buy new bed spreads to update the look of their bedrooms or new dishes because they got tired of the old ones. My mother has the same stuff in her house now that she had when I was growing up. She has bought new stuff over the years, of course, but she just arranges that new stuff in with the old stuff and makes it work (there's "bearly" room to walk, but ...). Her generation is of the thinking that if it still works, you don't throw it out. If you don't want it and can't find anyone else in the family that wants it - you put it in the attic.
Shortly after that day in my garage, we came across a big screen TV that some friends of mine were getting rid of and we (my brother and I) decided that it would be nice if my mother had it. We figured she should come into the 21st century and finally get rid of the console TV she has had for thirty years. So ... we got this new TV and we helped move it to her living room. Just about the time we figured she was going to put that old console TV in the garage - to get rid of - she announced that she wanted to put it in another room as, "It still works," she said. "We know it still works," my brother and I said in unison, "That's not the point. The point is that it's easily thirty years old and you have to look at the floor when you watch it." We moved it for her - into the other room. It will be there when she dies and we will inherit it in her will: "To Kellan ... I leave my 1976 Magnivox Console TV." I hope I get it, so I can put in in my garage and finally cycle it away.
We are certainly a generation of change - my mother's was not. In some ways I am very much like my mother, but in many ways we are very different. As different as my mother and I are, I am sure it will be the same with me and my children. I can't wait to see the things my children find peculiar about me when they are in their forties and I am seventy years old.
On the upside ... all that actual good stuff in my mother's house, we will also inherit in her will.