Civil 3D Essentials for the Unborn Boy

So you know I could never approach a project as big as motherhood without my normal amount of research and hysteria, right? While pregnant with Panorama, I played endless Mozart and researched baby sign language. I made sure I had a well stocked toybox full of engineeringly appropriate baby toys such as blocks, gears, stackers and more.

This time, I stumbled upon an interesting book called While You're Expecting: Creating Your Own Prenatal Classroom. This book discusses methods for communicating with your blessed unborn as well as research and interesting anecdotes about exposing children to things while in utero.

The story that stood out the most was one about a cellist who was working on perfecting a certain piece throughout her pregnancy. She played the tune just about every day for several hours. When the child grew up and became a musician himself, he always had a particular and seemingly unnatural connection to that certain piece and never could understand why.

Other studies show that babies who hear a certain piece of music, or hear a certain poem read seem to recognize, if not prefer, hearing those sounds as newborns and babies.

So....

Since April 15th or so, I have been talking out loud just about every single day about Civil 3D. I've lead an AUGI CAD Matinee, many CAD seminars, custom trainings and about 20 days worth of Essentials training. The Essentials training is the worst because I must speak quite loudly and I repeat myself over and over again for each class.

Does that mean Prospector will come out wanting to hear me read the AOTC? Will I be pacing the hallway at 3AM with a screaming baby only to find out that repeating "General>Toolspace" and "Pick, Right Click, Select Corridor Properties" is the only way to soothe him???

Another book I am reading is called Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences.

For Christmas, my Dad gave me The Female Brain which truly opened my eyes to the fact that despite my distaste for being called "Mrs. Probert", my BSCE and the lack of skirts in my closet, that my brain does indeed work differently from the male brains around me.

When Prospector turned out to be a boy, I wondered if I knew enough about boys... I mean... If there really is something to this Nature over Nuture idea, maybe I'd better study up.

So Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences talks about hard science- real studies of boys and girls, men and women. One thing that struck me is that little boys tend to think, act, draw and be motivated by "verbs"; where little girls tend to lean towards "nouns". For example, a little boy will draw a picture of a rocket flying and crashing into the moon, while a little girl might draw her friends and her on the moon with some trees and a kitten.

This explains why though my daughter does enjoy playing with her Cabella's hunting sets...


She tends to act out little stories with them, while her male pals and cousins tend to zoom them off of cliffs and have the hunter actually hunt things.

So I decided that though I will still buy Prospector his own kitchen set and a doll or two, I must embrace boyness to a higher level.

I can teach him how to change oil, train a retriever, and build a fire, but I am woefully lacking in my understanding of tying knots, building tree forts, setting trip wires and skipping stones.

(My husband, being Canadian and all, can teach him about hockey, tapping maples and making snow angels.)

I began to panic... then I found this book that contained all of the answers.

The Dangerous Book for Boys is 300 pages of everything a boy should know (or at least in the author's opinion). In addition to knots, treeforts and stones, it also covers pirates, important battles, invisible ink, essential grammar, coin tricks and more.

My copy arrived today, and since I have finished Harry Potter, I am hunkering down to read it and practice up my coin tricks. I have 43 days or less until Prospector arrives, and according to this book every boy needs to know 50 essential Latin phrases. Dang it. I should have ordered it last week so I only had to memorize one per day. Well, at least I already know Ad Hoc and Carpe Diem.