What Our Children Are Learning

This meme recently appeared on my Facebook feed:

I didn't know whether to be sad or angry, so I settled on both. And I figured I might as well add a few points the meme's author missed:

It's un-American to question the actions of your government. 

 

If you're strong and rich, laws don't apply to you; you can behave terribly and not suffer any consequences.

The truth is whatever you say it is, as long as you repeat it loud and long enough.

You can ignore inconvenient facts and manufacture your own as you need. 

I have three adult children, and six grandchildren ranging in age from 13 to 25. I hope that they continue to reject the despicable example set by this president and the members of his administration. And I hope that I never behave in a way that makes them think I would behave so terribly.

Have a good day. Believe in the Constitution and the law, not in the squalid and disgusting behavior of the current leadership.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

What the Next Generation is Learning

Der Furor has done almost immeasurable harm to this county in many areas: he has worked to wreck our health care system (in the middle of a pandemic); squandered the support and goodwill of our allies; enriched the rich while beggaring the middle and lower classes; and coarsened our discourse ... and all that's just for starters. The really sad part of it (aside from the fact that so many Americans who should know better are willing to forgive his excesses) is the effect his behavior and personality are having on our children and grandchildren.

I saw this meme on line the other day, and it really hits home:

What will our society look like when the last shreds of decency are gone from a generation that has learned the foul lessons of Der Furor? I certainly don't want to live in a country full of people who behave like him, but we may well do so.

Have a good day. Set a better example for your family than the fatuous, brutish, and ill-mannered ignoramus in the White House. 

More thoughts tomorrow, when we announce the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for September.

Bilbo

How Grandchildren See Things

Today my oldest grandson Joe, big brother extraordinaire of whom I am proud beyond words, turns 12 ... one more year until he's a teenager!

In honor of that august event (yes, Mike and Gonzo Dave, I know it's July, just work with me, okay), here is a selection of quotes about grandparents, culled from the accumulated wisdom of a large number of eight year olds and shared on Facebook by one of my friends ... with my occasional commentary, of course:

"Grandparents are a lady and a man who have no little children of their own. They like other people's."

"A grandfather is a man and a grandmother is a lady!" (Well, in our traditional family, anyhow)

"Grandparents don't have to do anything except be there when we come to see them. They are so old they shouldn't play hard or run. It is good if they drive us to the shops and give us money." (First sentence: it all depends on how you look at it. Second sentence: truer every year. Third sentence: true. Especially the "give us money" part.)

"When they take us for walks, they slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars." (At our age, we have a sense of childish wonder about some of those things, too!)

"They show us and talk to us about the color of the flowers and also why we shouldn't step on cracks."

"They don't say, 'Hurry up.'" (We don't hurry ... why should they?)

"Usually grandmothers are fat but not too fat to tie your shoes." (Agnes was not pleased about this one)

"They wear glasses and funny underwear." (True on the glasses. I'm not admitting anything about underwear)

"They can take their teeth and gums out." (Not yet, at least...)

"Grandparents don't have to be smart." (Well, that's a relief!)

"They have to answer questions like, 'Why isn't God married?' and 'How come dogs chase cats?'" (How many times a day can you hear the word "why"?)

"When they read to us, they don't skip. They don't mind if we ask for the same story over again." (I can't begin to tell you how many times I've read Green Eggs and Ham over the years...)

"Everybody should try to have a grandmother, especially if you don't have television, because they are the only grown-ups who like to spend time with us."

"They know we should have snack-time before bedtime and they say prayers with us every time and kiss us even when we've acted badly."

A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. "'Oh,' he said, 'She lives at the airport and when we want her we just go get her. Then when we're done having her visit, we take her back to the airport.'"

"Grandpa is the smartest man on earth! He teaches me good things but I don't get to see him enough to get as smart as him!" (Although if you ask any of my granddaughters, they'll tell you they're a lot smarter than I am)

And finally, this one, which my granddaughter Leya hit me with one day:

"You're not getting old, Opa. You're just getting fat!"

And just as a reminder of how our grandchildren actually see us, here's a picture Elise (age four at the time) took of me with my phone last summer when we went to a Washington Nationals baseball game ...

To our children and grandchildren, we're giants. It's a perspective worth remembering.

Have a good day. Love your children and grandchildren. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Of Celebrations and Competitions

I celebrated my birthday last Friday, and was able to celebrate over the weekend with this wonderful pineapple upside-down cake baked by my daughter Yasmin and her daughters Leya and Elise ...

I'm not all that much of a cake-and-sweets guy, but I love pineapple upside-down cake, and this one really turned out beautifully.

On Saturday, the girls wanted to play - of all things - Chopped!. This was based on the Food Network show they watch on which chefs compete against each other to create menus which use a basket of specific (often wildly outrageous) ingredients, plus whatever else they can find in the studio kitchen. We gave each girl a basket which included an apple, a lemon, two slices of bread, and a few slices of cheese and turned them loose in our kitchen to create an appetizer course.

Team Mama and Elise (age 4) created a nifty salad with toasted croutons, fried cheese, carrots, dried berries, and apples in a lemony sauce, while Team Oma and Leya (age 7) turned out an apple and carrot soup with lemon, sautéed carrots, and a slice of cheesy toast sprinkled with ground oatmeal.

I think it's great that the girls are taking an interest in cooking this early in life. I didn't really start seriously learning to cook until I found myself single and unable to afford to eat out all the time. My father was a superb and innovative cook, but I never bothered to learn from him until much later in life. Leya and Elise (especially Elise) both love to help in the kitchen, and even though they can't operate without close supervision, they both do a very respectable job for their ages ... Leya's scrambled eggs are especially good, as is her yogurt-based fruit dip.

Oh ... as for the Chopped! contest ... the judge (Opa, demonstrating truly Solomonic wisdom) decreed a tie between the competing appetizers. Elise's salad was quite good (even though she'd poached most of the croutons out of it by the time the judging started), and Leya's cold soup was very tasty and refreshing.

I have grandchildren who are cooks, dancers, musicians, athletes, gymnasts, and dinosaur experts. Am I a lucky guy or what?

Have a good day. Eat well.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

A Weekend with the Grandchildren

How much fun can you have with a pair of hyperactive grandchildren in two days? Enough to feel your age.

On Saturday afternoon, we visited Leya and Elise at their house. Leya wanted to plant the idea that we should go to to the amusement park at King's Dominion the following day, and so she thought it would be fun if she and I drew our own amusement park in the cul-de-sac with sidewalk chalk. The name of the roller coaster was her idea, as were the pirate ship, slides, jungle gym, and boys' and girls' porta-potties...

She had me draw several cars at various points along "The Blood Dropper," and gave me specific instructions on how to draw one of them: note the hat that has blown off the fellow in the last seat, and the sparks flying from the wheels ...

While this was going on, Oma Agnes and Elise enjoyed some quality cuddling time ...

On Sunday, we did indeed go to King's Dominion, and Elise was very specific about all the rides she wanted to go on. She had to have her own copy of the park map and know where we were at all times ...

The park has a section for smaller children called "Planet Snoopy," with a Peanuts theme. Elise got a big charge out of "Charlie Brown's Wind-Up" ...

Elise listens attentively as Leya pontificates on the relative merits of various types of soft ice cream ... 

One of these days, I'm going to get to ride ...

In the afternoon, after things warmed up a bit, the girls wanted to go swimming at Big Wave Bay at the Water Park. I told Elise she couldn't go into the water until her mother was ready to go with her. Here, she demonstrates her sneaky grin as she edges sideways - an inch at a time - into the pool.

In the meantime, Leya found creative ways to play with the poolside water jets ...

I don't like roller coasters very much ... getting whipped around at high speed while trying to keep my lunch where it belongs isn't my idea of a good time. Nevertheless, Leya conned me into riding the Woodstock Express roller coaster with her. In this picture, Leya and I haven't even started the ride yet ... I was just practicing my terrified look.

Elise rode the roller coaster, too, along with riding Lucy's Tugboat with Agnes ...

As we were on the way out of the park, we were approached by a young man who had won a very large prize in one of the games that he didn't want, and wondered if the girls would like to have it*. And so it was that we drove home in two cars: Yasmin and Agnes and the girls in one car ... and me and a huge stuffed pig in the other**. Elise loves the pig ...

It was a busy two days, but it's always fun to spend time with the grandchildren you love. I think I'll have my energy built back up by Wednesday or so.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Oddly enough, this is the second time this has happened to us at the same park. Many years ago, when our daughter Yasmin was about the same age as her daughter Leya is now, a sailor on leave won an enormous stuffed dog he couldn't take back to his ship with him ... and he gave it to Yasmin. 

** Someday, I'll tell you the story of the day I took a walk with a huge, green-and-yellow stuffed frog. In uniform. Me, not the frog.

Secure Download

This was one of a series of photos on the topic of "innocence" that I received the other day from my friend Bob. Given some of what's out there on the internet, I think this young lady may have the right idea ...

I am continually amazed at the computer literacy or, at least, the level of comfort with computers, shown by my grandchildren. I like to think I'm pretty computer-literate, but sometimes they're so far ahead that it scares me.

Tomorrow we'll take a few minutes to parse the various Last Supper Lists you provided. For now, it's time to drag my poor, sagging rear end into a new day. Sigh.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Pun Training

Over the weekend we drove up to Calvert Cliffs State Park in Maryland with our daughter and the local grandchildren. It was a fun, if exhausting day ... after an hour or so of steady and energetic play on the recycled tire playground, we hiked the 1.8 miles down to the beach to search for fossils and shells. This is not an overly long distance unless you are carrying a tired child, and it is a little-known law of physics that the weight of a child increases geometrically with the distance she is to be carried. We were a bit worn out at the end of the day, while the girls had their second wind and were raring to go.

But the real topic of this post is not the sheer joy of carrying a six-year-old in damp, sandy clothes on your shoulders, but puns.

One of the topics of discussion during the ride back from the park was puns. You know that I love puns*, as do most of the members of my family, and my daughter was wistfully wishing I'd taught her more of the art of punning so that she could, in turn, teach it to Leya and Elise. Leya is at the age where she loves jokes, but doesn't yet understand what makes a joke funny, or how to tell it. She enjoys knock-knock jokes and can tell them endlessly, but doesn't understand the concept of the pun that underlies them. Here's an example:

Leya: Knock-knock!

Me: Who's there?

Leya: Elephant.

Me: Elephant who?

Leya: There's an elephant in the refrigerator and he's eating all your yogurt!

Me: (laughs hysterically, because that's what grandparents do)

I have been trying to get Leya to understand the idea that what makes a pun funny is it's use of a word in an unexpected way that makes use of its sound, rather than its meaning ...

Me: "Leya, what would you call a man who is digging in his yard with a shovel?"

Leya: "I don't know."

Me: "Doug Holes."

Leya: "?"

Me: "'Doug' is a man's name. And 'dug' also means making holes. So the man's name would be 'Doug Holes.'"

Leya: (laughs hysterically, then proceeds to generate an endless series of meaningless jokes using the word "dug.")

My Daughter: (looks at me with that "nice try, Opa" look that she reserves for my most egregious missteps)

Agnes: (continues to nap in the back seat)

So, how do you explain puns to a six-year-old? The only way I know is to tell lots of really obvious jokes and be prepared to explain in nauseating detail why they're funny ... and to be prepared to laugh at a lot of jokes that only make sense to a young child.

Because, of course, that's what grandparents do.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* As do many of you. See also my post from last month titled "I Know What You Do."

Do Not Mess with My Grandson!

Noah is my youngest grandson, and he's really cute. And I think I want to stay on his good side.

Have a good day. Don't mess with Noah.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Hat Thievery

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous summer day here in Northern Virginia, and we spent most of the afternoon in an outing with our local grandchildren to Burke Lake Park, a great (free!) picnic and fun location not far from our house. We enjoyed a picnic lunch, rode the train and the carousel, and visted the open house display by the Fairfax County Police Department, but the high point of the afternoon was ... as it often is ... a spirited game of "Let's Steal Opa's Hat."

Ever since I developed the solar panel on the back of my head, I've taken to wearing a floppy sun hat while working in the yard or spending time outdoors. My granddaughters Leya and Elise have decided that it's great fun to play keepaway with said hat.

First, of course, you have to catch Opa ...

Once you've caught him and stolen his hat, you need to make sure he can't move fast enough to get it back ... either by attaching a high-energy grandchild to each leg ...

Or by just weighing him down ...

Elise is never satisfied with just one hat when others are available ... mama's cap was up for grabs, too ...

Elise gleefully points out that ha-ha-I've-got-your-hat-and-you-don't. 

Elise's dad told us one time that we shouldn't bother with setting up a college fund for her - given her mischievous nature, a bail fund would probably be more useful in the long run. True dat!

That was yesterday. Today we'll celebrate Leya's sixth birthday with a tea party for Leya and her friends. This ought to be interesting. 

Have a good day, and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Reading Aloud

This post is directed more toward those of you who are - or are likely to become - parents, so if this condition doesn't apply, you may want to just move on and come back for Cartoon Saturday.

I read this very interesting article the other day on The Atlantic website: "There Are Plenty of Reasons Why Parents May Read More With Their Daughters." It drew my interest because one of my favorite pastimes is reading to children, and because reading to one's children is a multi-win activity ... it helps them learn the language, it provides opportunities for quality time to cuddle.

My own parents, and particularly my father, were world-class readers. Dad's readings were always fun and exciting, using different voices for each character, adding sound effects, and twisting some of the text into puns or clever malaprops (such as the book in which the characters Gaston and Josephine became "Gas Bomb" and "Josie-pheme"). When I read to my grandchildren, I tend to read the same way, much to their often frustrated delight ("no, Opa, that's not right!") ...

But, getting back to the Atlantic article by Nanette Fondas, why do we read more with our daughters than with our sons? There are a lot of theories, some of which deal with sexual stereotypes; Ms Fondas writes that

"... parents may be following cultural scripts and unconscious biases that suggest they should read with their daughters, and have active play with sons ... It is just more costly to provide a unit of reading to a boy than to a girl because the boy doesn't sit still, you know, doesn't pay attention ..."

Well, I think that it's entirely possible to get a boy to sit still long enough to listen to a well-read story. Personal experience shows that it's just as hard to get my granddaughters to sit still as it is to get any of my grandsons to sit still ... but just as rewarding when it succeeds.

Reading to small children is one of the most rewarding of activities. It combines teaching, learning, entertainment, and physical cuddling. The joy of listening to a child laugh at a well-told story is a reward beyond all price. Reading aloud is, in general, a rewarding activity. If I may engage in a little back-patting, I think I can do world-class readings of poems like "Casey at the Bat," "The Raven," and "The Fool's Prayer," among others ... not all suitable for the smallest of children, but fun for older audiences.

Have a good day Read more, both to yourself and to your children, both the boys and the girls. They'll love it and so will you ... and so will their children.

See you back here for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

Spring Has Sprung! Well, Sort Of ...

After the miserable bust of the "Snowquester" earlier this week, when the much-hyped 8-10 inches of snow turned out to be about three inches of wet snow that turned to rain and vanished pretty much overnight, all of us in the National Capitol Region were ready for some decent weather ... and we seem to have gotten it! Yesterday was a gorgeous day, with brilliant blue sky, bright sunshine, and a high in the mid-60's, and today is exactly the same, with the exception of a few high, thin clouds. You'd almost think Spring was here!

Yesterday Agnes and I took the opportunity to take a nice long walk around the neighborhood, and I was able to get my compost pile raked out and stirred up in preparation for planting this year's garden. I didn't get quite energetic enough to start weeding and raking out my garden plots, or to buy new pots for my herbs, but it's still early ... and who is better to put the "pro" in "procrastination" than I?

This morning we went to visit our local grandchildren, and took advantage of the glorious weather to get them outside for some fresh air and exercise. Leya conned her father into opening up the zip line that he installed last summer (you can read about that adventure here), and she and Elise had a great time zipping down the line ...

Leya went first ...

And Elise followed ...

Their father rigged up a tow line to enable the seat to be towed back to the starting point, which saves quite a bit of jogging from one end of the line to the other.  Elise insisted on pulling her sister back, which she accomplished with much energy, if a bit more slowly than Leya might have wanted ...

And I couldn't help taking a few pictures of a more artistic nature, given the beautiful sky being massaged by the bare branches of the trees ...

Tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day, but since I'll spend it at work, I guess I'll just have to take it on faith. I just hope we're through with this #$&%! on-again-off-again winter and that spring is around the corner. I know Peg is!

Have a good day. Enjoy the good weather while it's here ... it won't be long before we're bitching about the summer heat.

More thoughts on Tuesday.

Bilbo

My Granddaughter the Artist, and Her Model

I couldn't help myself ...

This afternoon we were visiting with our local grandchildren, and I discovered a wig that went with my granddaughter Leya's "Brave" Halloween costume, so I just had to try it on. Leya loved it, and added a hat. And then she drew a picture of the whole thing ...

I think I looked better in her drawing.

It's good to be the Opa!

Have a good evening. See you back in this space on Tuesday!

Bilbo

American Chinese Girl

Our granddaughter Leya has a birthday coming up next month, and so - as good grandparents will do - we asked her what she might like for her birthday. As she is now into the "American Girl" doll series, she said she would like to have this year's girl-of-the-year doll ("McKenna"), and several specific outfits for her (she showed us the right ones in the catalog, so we wouldn't make any mistakes).

And so it was that yesterday Agnes and I made the trek to the Tyson's Corner shopping center on the other side of town, and it's two-level, ultra-fancy American Girl store.

We had already bought matching American Girl "bitty baby" dolls for Leya and Elise last year, and our other granddaughter Marcy went through her American Girl doll phase, so we were pretty much aware of what to expect, but it's still an ... interesting ... experience to see the marketing wizardry and psychology that goes into the whole American Girl phenomenon. Oh, and there's the economics lesson, too. Here are a few candid observations about the American Girl doll thing:

1. We spent about 45 minutes in the store, during which time I found not a single item ... not one ... that was not made in China. There's a depressing lesson in economics to be found here.

2. We spent several hours bummelling around the mall, during which time we saw an amazing number of young girls carrying one ... and sometimes two ... American Girl dolls. As the larger dolls themselves cost an average of about $105, and the "bitty babies" about $50 (going up to $120 for the full "starter kit"), this represents a hefty investment for parents*.

3. The average outfit or "accessory package" for an American Girl doll costs between $18 and $35, with matching outfits available for the actual girl at commensurate prices. Depending on where you shop, you can get clothing for a real girl for prices like those.

4. The store includes a beauty salon for the dolls, as well as an actual doll hospital, which offers such treatments as "reattachment of head**," "new body (torso and limbs)***," and a complimentary "wellness exam."

Oy.

There was a time when dolls were a good deal simpler. At one time, Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy were the dolls everyone wanted ...

And things started going downhill with the advent of Barbie ... and Ken ... and the whole explosion of friends, outfits, accessories, cars, houses, movies, and all the other stuff that came with them ...

At one time, Raggedy Ann and Andy and Barbie and Ken were probably made in the US, too.

But things are a lot different now, and the doll of the hour is the American Girl ... who is actually a Chinese Girl, but that's not important to the real girl who wants one. Just to the American Parent whose job making those dolls is now located in a suburb of some unpronounceable Chinese city.

But anyhow ...

Leya will get her doll (from her mother) and the outfits (from her grandparents) and she'll have a wonderful time. And, eventually, she will learn parenting skills that do not involve carrying the baby by one leg.

And the Chinese economy will continue to boom.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo


* I was surprised to note that American Girl does not sell safes in which to store these valuable figures. But I'm sure that's coming eventually.


** This would be a useful service for Members of Congress, but would probably require an upcharge to cover the cost of extracting the head from the ass in the first place.


*** There are those of us who could use such a service ourselves. I'll take the early-20's torso with the six-pack abs, please.

Making the World Safe from Monsters

Very quickly this morning, as I have much to do today ...

You may not have realized it, but our poor world is infested with monsters, and Leya and I are working hard on your behalf to scare them all away ...

I only wish it would work with gun nuts, Tea Party zealots, and the radical fringes of the Occupy (insert street or city name here) movement. But I guess that means we just have to work that much harder.

Rest easy ... we're on the job for you.

Have a good day. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Grandparent Thing

You've probably noticed that I enjoy being a grandparent. It's the reward you get for not strangling your children when they were teen-agers. It's also good for a lot of great stories about the things grandchildren say and do. Courtesy of Miss Cellania, here are a few good grandparent stories...

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she'd done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, "But Gramma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!" I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye!!

2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, "62." He was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was that?"

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like: "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo and I said, "No, how are we alike?"

"You're both old," he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story. "What's it about?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied, "I can't read."

7. I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last she headed for the door, saying, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these yourself!"

8. When my grandson Melvin and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure."

"Look in your underwear, Grandpa," he advised. "Mine says I'm four to six."

10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today."

The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "That's interesting," she said, "How do you make babies?"

''It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'!"

Just a little something for you to look forward to when you have your own grandchildren.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo