State of my Family

I sat down the other night to watch the State of the Union address. Okay, I lied. I sat down to check the weather on the Internet and the address happened to be playing in the background. I'd checked the ten-day forecast and all four of my email accounts before I realized the State of the Union address was still going. I'm pretty sure I could plow through that Gettysburg speech in like three minutes, so I'm not sure why politicians today think they have to speak for so long.

Anyway, it was a quasi-patriotic experience having the president speak over my shoulder while I deleted messages in my spam folder promising…well, promising things that were about as likely to be delivered as anything the president was saying.

But the moment gave me an idea. As the (sort-of) president of my family, I should give a State-of-my-Family address. 

I'll have my children and wife sit on the couch, preferably wearing their most uncomfortable clothing. Then I'll have two people sit behind me to provide contrast. One will be someone who hates my guts. I'm thinking my high school driver's ed teacher, who told me on my last day that I would get in many accidents. He can grimace sourly at everything I say.

The other person behind me will be an absolute toad, who can nod approvingly at every word that comes out of my mouth like it was his idea to begin with. I have no idea who can play this role, as I've yet to meet a human being who agrees with everything I say. I do have a bobble-head doll that could work though.

I'll have to find a way to get only half the room standing and clapping at a time, while the other half folds its arms and shakes its heads with pursed lips. I could start by promising to ban princesses. This should get the male members of my family cheering, while winning dour looks from my daughter. I don't want to overreach though, so I'll focus only on extended capacity princesses. Snow White will still be fine.

I'll want to end the speech on a high note, possibly by invoking God, as so many politicians do. (Although given God's thoughts on lying, he's probably busy checking his Twitter feed like everyone else in the audience, rather than waiting around for the obligatory "God bless the United States of America" line.)

So I'll finish my address by passing out candy. Ought to win me another four years given the electorate I'm facing...

How to Screw up a Kid for Life

I’ve named three babies in my life. You may question whether that makes me a doddering amateur or a seasoned professional. I suppose if I said I’d hammered three nails in my life you’d likely not be inclined to ask my help on your next construction project. But if I said I’d defused three bombs in my life, you’d think I was MacGyver (Or James Bond if you’re too young to know who MacGyver was.) Given the relative scarcity of baby naming opportunities a person has in his life, I consider myself highly proficient at baby naming.

I named my first child, Brennen after bickering through a list of names with my wife. My second son, Caleb, was taken from the same list, being the only other name that we both agreed on for a boy. My daughter, Emily, is named after the greatest poet in the history of the universe: Emily Dickinson. 

Those are three pretty straightforward names. Chances are, if I asked you to spell all of them, you’d go two-for-three without breaking a sweat, and you might even luck into spelling Brennen’s name with an “e” instead of an “a.”

So if a noted weirdo like me can name three children without incident, setting them up for a life of normalcy (at least on the as far as their names go), why are so many people having trouble naming their babies lately without resorting to odd creations and perplexing spellings?  Celebrities, for example, apparently can’t even be bothered to think about their children’s names. They just shout out the first concrete noun in sight and go with it: Apple! Blanket! Coco! Done.

Possibly just as bad (at least for their future teachers) are those kids whose parents decide to test the limits of phonetics with their creative spellings. Ashleigh, anyone?

I fear we are raising a whole generation of kids who think spelling is like some sort of X-games event: make it up as you go, and as long as it looks pretty, you’ll get some points.  

Around the World in 80 Minutes

“Daddy, what’s inside the Parthenon?” Questions like these have replaced “Why is grass green” at my house thanks to the Around the World Toob® from Safari Ltd®.  The educational possibilities of this collection are almost unlimited, and my kids are drawn to the beautiful replicas.

Around the World

 We started by using the Around the World figures to make matching cards, which are popular in many elementary classrooms.  In this case, we have colorful replicas in place of pictures. I wrote cards with the name of each wonder and its country. Then my six-year-old worked on matching them up.

Brennen tries to remember where Big Ben is located

 

He was thrilled when he was able to match each of the ten figures to its name and country. Then we practiced saying the name of each wonder. Fortunately Machu Picchu wasn't included in this group, or I'd have been in trouble.

Then we brought out our world map. My four-year-old joined us for this, and both boys enjoyed trying to locate the country where each figure belongs and place it on the map. Although we have a large world map, this would work with any sized map, as the figures are just a few inches wide at most. 

Caleb sets the Empire State Building in New York

 

This turned out to be a wonderful group activity, as my oldest gave the name and country for each replica and his little brother tried to find it on the map. I was no help at all, as I spent the whole time trying to figure out why my camera batteries kept dying. A few minutes later, they had each model in the right place, and were they ever proud of their work!

Emily joins in for a group shot

 

So in one morning, my kids learned some history and some geography while playing and having fun. I learned what's inside my camera, which was far less fun. Now if I can only figure out what's inside the Parthenon.