Category Archives: Random Toy Box

Posts on the general topic of family.

Reflections inspired by a German class for second graders

Our eldest is beginning an after school German class today. This is not the sort of news that normally makes one reflective, but here I go anyway.

In a perfect world, I should be the one to teach my kids to speak German. Implicit in that perfection would be my knowing how to speak German. My father spoke German, fluently. In the perfect world I mentioned, he would have taught it to me when I was little. I would have soaked it up, and it would be as natural as English to me.

In the imperfect world that formed me, my father did no such thing. He was a teenager during the Second World War, living in the USA and speaking German as smoothly as his immigrant parents. Not surprisingly, something in that combination convinced him not to speak German to his children.

I took German as a freshman in college. It was either a language or Math, and I felt done with Math. I picked German. Maybe something in my genes would mold it to my tongue more securely than the high school Spanish that had always merely swilled about in my mouth before dribbling down my chin.

German 101 supplied me the worst grades of my academic career, if you discard the high school Geography class I nearly failed because I was too busy protesting the methods of the high school Geography class and the methods of high school in general.

The edition I used didn't have such a lovely cover, which is probably why I wasn't inspired to do better in class.

The edition I used didn’t have such a lovely cover, which is probably why I wasn’t inspired to do better in class.

After freshman year, I transferred to a school that required no more Math or foreign languages out of me, which was good since I was done applying myself mathematically and I had no aptitude for foreign languages.

In fact, I was a pretty lousy student overall.

As the undergraduate years rolled by, it became clear that I was a poor classroom learner. Yet, for the very best of reasons (I couldn’t find a job), I attempted graduate school.

Graduate school taught me only one thing: there is nothing like higher education to suck the life out of a subject matter you love (or thought you loved).

I thought I loved History, until I tried to pursue it as a graduate degree. Apparently, it was something else I loved, an academic Cyrano de Bergerac, hiding in the bushes, feeding enchanting lines to the deceitful mouth of History. History itself is mind-numbingly boring; they taught me that in one semester of graduate school.

Since I’d learned everything I needed to know about History, I determined I didn’t require more than one semester of grad school.

That was the end of my formal education in German or Math or History or anything. Abrupt, but okay for a rotten student.

My son is excited about his German class. I hope that excitement lasts. I hope he’s a good student. I hope he inherited his mother’s love for school.

I hope he goes on to become much more than a grad school dropout who can’t even speak German.

One day in Berlin

I have a new favorite author. So far, he only writes short stories, but that’s fine with me, as he has already established himself as a favorite visual artist of mine. The kid is multi-talented.

Here is one of his latest literary offerings.

Berlin

Since the original may be difficult to see, I’ll type it out:

One day in Berlin there where [sic] nine people playing football. Then uncle Bob acsadentliy [sic] therw [sic] the ball at a ponty [sic] fence and the ball went pop! They went to a store but the footballs were all gone. Then they went home to look for a pump and patch but the stuff was lost. They where[sic] in bad luck. Then they went to Jakes house and they played catch. the end

In honor of discovering this new talent, I will now hold an impromptu book club meeting regarding this work. Let’s dig deeper into the text.

There’s a surprising amount of mystery surrounding this episode. For example, why is it set in Berlin? Well, actually, that’s not so much a mystery if you have followed this artist and seen the pickelhaube and Prussian flag requests in his Christmas letters to Santa, like I have. Berlin is the capital of Germany. That says it all.

Were they playing American football or European football (soccer)? We can’t be sure, but the fact that uncle Bob threw the ball indicates that, unless he was goalie or was throwing the ball in from out of bounds, it was likely American football. Also, the fact that he threw it at D-fence, or in German, Die-Fence, indicates he probably owned a cardboard cutout of a picket border which he took to NFL games.

Also, all the footballs being gone from the store lends evidence to it being an American football, as the German sporting goods shops would less likely be out of soccer balls.

Who misplaced the pump and patch? This is the question a father asks every time something goes flat. No one ever takes responsibility, and no one ever will.

Did Jake have another ball at his house, or did they make the best of things and play catch with the flat ball? I like to think Jake demonstrated admirable character development by showing his eight comrades that inflation is just a state of mind. The world thinks you can’t play catch with a popped ball. You can submit to that kind of limited thinking, or you can change the world. Way to go, Jake! You are a true football hero.

Sometimes the answer to great problems (global strife, world hunger, playing sports with an uninflated ball) are all about shifting the perceptions of the major players.

This is an uplifting story of human triumph. It shows that you can do anything your mind allows you, like playing with a popped ball, or even hyphenating and splitting single-syllable words onto multiple lines.

I think I’m going to be a fan of this guy for a long time.

 

Three boys who built a nation

You know when you read a post on a Mommy/Daddy blog and the whole thing is an excuse for the writer to brag about his/her kid’s intellect or athleticism? Don’t you just hate that?

Good news! This will be the latest in a string of 260ish posts in which I do not brag about any of my kids’ prowess on an athletic field. Yes, I did post about my son’s first soccer goal, but that was more relief than boasting.

The bad news is that there are two more boys coming along who may develop into star athletes, should lightning strike, and who knows that you won’t be showered with tales of their goals and touchdowns through the seasons of the future.

But that’s for another day. For now, I will take the humble road and merely tell you how smart my kids are.

For his seventh birthday, Big Brother asked for a puzzle map of the United States. Since this was easier to procure than an authentic German pickelhaube, worn by a real WWI soldier, preferably his great-grandfather, I decided the map would make a fine gift. (I doubt his great-grandfather packed his pointy helmet for his voyage to America.)

Big Brother was thrilled to receive his puzzle map and, being an eager student of geography, put it together immediately. To challenge himself, he began putting it together with the pieces upside down. His enthusiasm for the map drew Buster’s attention. Before long, Big Brother was helping Buster put the map together.

east is west

When you use the pieces upside down, it makes everything seem backwards too.

We can build a nation.

Big Brother helps Buster learn the ropes. Big Man refrains from eating the pieces.

Now, Buster doesn’t know the names of the states, or their capitals, like Big Brother does, but I’ll be damned if he hasn’t learned where a good many of them go.

building a nation

This is how much Buster can put together without any help.

I would have been completely satisfied with this. It is more than enough to fill an entire post with cringe-worthy paternal pride. But Buster, his father’s son, finds joy in sharing knowledge. Like his father, he never let the fact that he only half knows what he’s doing prevent him from teaching somebody else how to do it. The world moves fast, and we can’t wait for them to wait for us to learn the whole thing.

Buster has begun teaching Big Man how to put the United States together. As of last night, Big Man could put Michigan and Maine in the right spots. That may not seem like much, but it is almost 1/3 of the Ms, and the Ms pull as much weight as anybody, state-wise.

junior partners

Buster passes his learning on to Big Man. If this cycle retains its natural course, Big Man will soon pass on his knowledge to me.

 

By this time next week, they’ll all know more about geography than I do. It’s a good thing I didn’t wait until I knew much about it to start teaching them, or maybe getting out of the way so they could learn it on their own.

Anyway, aren’t you glad I used this post to objectively document intellectual progress rather than get all puffed out about my amazing kids? Don’t you just love it when a blog is all classy like that?

Daddy’s alternate ending to “Love You Forever”

There is a downside to child-friendly eateries. When children realize an establishment caters to their desires, they tend to relax from their best eating-out behavior and view it as a playground with chicken fingers.

We have one or two restaurants where our kids need help remembering they are there to eat, not run an obstacle course. With the younger boys, I have more patience, but I had to explain to the older boy exactly what payback he was setting himself up for.

I told him that in a few years (perhaps as many as 10), it will become his duty to come fortnightly to the nursing home and pick me up. He will spend every other Friday night taking me out for casual dining, in a restaurant very similar to the one in which he is currently taking liberties.

I'll be waiting

Six o’clock sharp, every other Friday. I’ll be waiting for him in my overcoat, and whatever other clothes I’ve remembered to wear. (Image: Josh Vichon/US Farm Security Administration)

I will behave and make it seem like a pleasant visit with his old dad, until halfway through dinner, at which point I will have one of my spells and begin throwing chicken with ranch dressing and the ice cream flavor of the day onto every window my eroded flinging skills can reach.

Everybody in the restaurant will stare at us. They will conclude that I am in no condition to control myself and wonder why any responsible adult or teenaged boy (as the case may be) would bring me where I would so predictably disrupt the dinner-time peace of many innocent bystanders.

The manager will come to our table with a wad of napkins and assorted damp rags and nod meaningfully at the soiled windows. My son will begin to clean the windows, only realizing he has mis-prioritized his tasks when I hit him in the back of the head with a hunk of chicken he assumes is intended for the window. He will backtrack and clear my area of weaponizable foodstuffs before returning to the secondary task of cleaning the mess.

As he begins to make progress, I will have an “accident” (wink) in my adult diaper, causing many complaints, and leading the manager to ask him to take me out, regardless of his progress on the windows.

Yeah, you're probably not gonna want to hold me on your lap after dinner.

Yeah, you’re probably not gonna want to hold me on your lap after dinner.

It will be a relief to get me away from there, except that, despite my mental feebleness, I’m still spry, racing among the tables, taunting him with my nimble kicks.

He and three employees corner me. As he escorts me to the car, I wail in piercing tones that I haven’t had my ice cream.

He’s humiliated. I ask how many days until our next outing.

I am not sure this prophesy has any lasting effect upon him, but while he’s shaking his head in horror and thinking up excuses for missing our inaugural Friday appointment, he’s not playing tag with his brothers.

For the record, my children don’t throw food at the windows. Also, dementia is a tragic and serious illness, and I will only fake it as a last resort if my children keep pushing me toward payback.