Rock Collector

It's official, my son is turning into my mother. 

He has started his own rock collection.

He is not terribly picky, if it is a rock, it can be added to the collection. As he gets older I'm sure that he will refine his taste a bit. 

Now I suppose I should give you a little background on my mother's rock collecting habits. 

I know that everyone is embarassed by their mothers when they are teenagers, but did you ever have to go on rock picking excursions with yours when you were a teen? I have some very distinct memories of picking five gallon buckets full of rocks at the beach so my mom could use them to make lamps, vases, birdhouses, and picture frames. The stuff that she makes is great, but picking the rocks is not always great. Everywhere that we go is filled with the chorus of "Ohhhhh, look at that one..." I remember the back end of the car sagging low to the ground because the trunk was so full of rocks. 

On our recent trip to Denali my son decided that he was a rock collector, which I have to admit I find slightly better than the bone collecting phase that he had gone through. He would tell people that he was a  bone collector and hearing him say that out loud just kind of creeped me out. I  hope that this particular preoccupation means that he will someday be an archeologist, but bone collector just sounds a little morbid. He even asked me for the bone from my pork chop once so that he could add it too his collection. No lie. 

Anyhow, we were in Denali and he decided to start a rock collection, but he decided to go for quantity, not quality. He had found an old box and wanted to fill it. DH and I laughed and said, no, why don't you just put some of your favorites in your pocket. 

He persisted and DH finally said if you can carry the full box back to the truck, you can have them all. We were parked probably a quarter to a half a mile away. The kids started piling the rocks in and later I found out that DH drove the truck back and picked up the box where Sonny Boy had left it (turns out Sonny Boy over estimated his ability to carry a box full of rocks for a quarter of a mile). Considering his gruff exterior, DH  surprises me with sentimental acts like that sometimes. I know deep down he is a bit of a softy. 

So now everywhere we go Sonny Boy is looking for rocks to add to his collection. It just brings me back to my childhood. And now I fear that I may be turning into my mother myself. We are putting a walkway up to our front porch and I have my heart set on flagstone. Turns out that it  is not readily available here at all, which means 1) most people here have no idea what I am talking about when I ask them if they know where I can get flagstone, and 2) if you do find someone who sells it is insanely expensive (as in 60 to 80 cents per POUND of rock! . So when we were camping near Eklutna last weekend we saw several flat stones in the river and we all grabbed one and ran back to the car. DH carried three for me. The kids didn't quite get that we were trying to be stealthy and ran through the parking lot yelling "Look, Mom, look at the rocks we got for you!"

I think my mother would burst with pride.