Actually, November 4th was Barack Obama day according to my son Ryan. He went around telling everyone with ears to hear him that the election was going to be won by Barack Obama because he is "awesome" and "not John McCain". I would like to stress the fact that while his mother and I are flaming liberals and were totally behind Obama from the start, we rarely discussed politics when the kids were around. Not because we were trying to hide anything from them, but because any time we try and talk about something other than Ethan's dinner, Ryans trains, Ryan's current level of dissatisfaction with the proximity of his younger brother to said trains, or candy, we get interrupted about every 2.4 seconds with one or the other of the boys interjecting "Mom! Dad!" or "Eeegh! Ake!" depending on the age and vocabulary of the one doing the interrupting. This makes it all the more surprising that Ryan became a huge fan of our president-elect.
I was first made aware of his love for Obama when we accidentally found ourselves at a "NObama" rally held outside the local Barnes and Nobel store. As we drove up to the parking lot of the bookstore, I noticed a bus plastered with pictures of McCain and Palin and a few hundred people surrounding it. A womans voice was clearly audible even from where we parked, and I thought it sounded like the woman herself, Sarah Palin. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go hear her speak, so I grabbed Ethan in my arms and the three Doyle boys set out to attend our first political rally as a family.
About 50 yards from the stage, the speaker said something, I forget what, that made it clear that it was not actually Sarah Palin speaking. (In hindsight it is obvious that there is no way in hell she would have been out in a parking lot in Illinois that close to the election, but the person speaking really sounded like her.) I decided that if we weren't going to hear Palin speak that we would just head into the bookstore as we had planned. On the way back to the store, Ryan asked some questions.
"What were those people doing there, Dad?"
"They were having a political rally," I said.
Ever the curious one, he asked, "What is a rally?"
"A rally is when people who all believe the same thing get together and cheer each other on."
"Like at the Fire games?" Thats my boy...way to bring it back to soccer!
"Yep, except at this rally the people are not cheering for a team, they are cheering against a person."
A confused look crossed his face. "Who are they cheering against?"
"They don't like Barack Obama and would rather see John McCain elected president. They are cheering against Obama and the things he wants to do as president."
And then, with no prompting whatsoever, he says, "Well that's stupid. Barack Obama is going to win. He is totally awesome."
And with that my son made his first correct political prediction, and election day (and each subsequent day) became "Barack Obama Day".
Let's just hope that Ryan is correct about Obama being "awesome" as well.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The littlest Doyle speaks!
Finally, the littlest Doyle does something worth writing about. After a little over a year of basically just eating, pooping, and sleeping, he is now starting to walk and talk a bit. He has been crawling for quite a while and, believe me, while this starts out being kinda cool it quickly loses its luster when he gets it into his little laser-focused brain that he wants to knock over all the DVD’s, eat his brother’s crayons, or play in the toilet. No amount of picking him up and moving him to another part of the room deters him from his mission. Typically, as soon as you put him down he laughs and turns immediately to head back to continue where he left off. I half expect him to flip me the bird as he crawls away.
Recently he started heading right for the stairs whenever he was given the opportunity. He loved the thrill of the chase, apparently, because he would begin by playing quietly until we became distracted by something else. As soon as our back were turned, he would bolt for the stairs, laughing his little head off and crawling as far up them as he could in the time it would take Jen or I to catch him. Having a four year old in the house makes for fairly distracted parents, so he got plenty of practice. It got to the point where he could make almost to the top of the stairs before we could catch him. The little sucker is quick.
Now he is talking a bit and says things like “Dada”, “Mama”, “Non-non”, and “peaches”. These are all great, and it is wonderful to hear “DADA!” when I come home, but my favorite word of his is “Ake!”
He was sitting in his seat after dinner and Jen and Ryan were having a little cake for dessert. Jen, being a good mom, didn’t want her littlest son to miss out on the experience of chocolate cake, so she gave him a little forkful of the stuff. He seemed to dig it, because after finishing his little bite, he began pounding on the table with his little fists, shouting “Ake! Ake!” and pointing at the rest of the piece on Ryan’s plate.
Thankfully he was satisfied with a few more bites from Jen's piece because, as you are all probably aware, 4 year olds do not share cake well.
Recently he started heading right for the stairs whenever he was given the opportunity. He loved the thrill of the chase, apparently, because he would begin by playing quietly until we became distracted by something else. As soon as our back were turned, he would bolt for the stairs, laughing his little head off and crawling as far up them as he could in the time it would take Jen or I to catch him. Having a four year old in the house makes for fairly distracted parents, so he got plenty of practice. It got to the point where he could make almost to the top of the stairs before we could catch him. The little sucker is quick.
Now he is talking a bit and says things like “Dada”, “Mama”, “Non-non”, and “peaches”. These are all great, and it is wonderful to hear “DADA!” when I come home, but my favorite word of his is “Ake!”
He was sitting in his seat after dinner and Jen and Ryan were having a little cake for dessert. Jen, being a good mom, didn’t want her littlest son to miss out on the experience of chocolate cake, so she gave him a little forkful of the stuff. He seemed to dig it, because after finishing his little bite, he began pounding on the table with his little fists, shouting “Ake! Ake!” and pointing at the rest of the piece on Ryan’s plate.
Thankfully he was satisfied with a few more bites from Jen's piece because, as you are all probably aware, 4 year olds do not share cake well.
I was right!
I was chatting with my brother the other day when the topic of conversation switched, as it inevitably does, to sports. We were both bemoaning the terrible status of our schools respective football teams, both of which are having a difficult time this season. My school is having such a tough time that we joked about the idea that the soccer team has scored more goals this season than the football team has points. I even went so far as to say that I thought that this was actually the case, but I’d have to look into it.
I did, and unfortunately I was right. The football team has scored a total of 24 points this season after 5 games, while the soccer team has scored 27 goals in 15 games.
I was right, and I rule.
I did, and unfortunately I was right. The football team has scored a total of 24 points this season after 5 games, while the soccer team has scored 27 goals in 15 games.
I was right, and I rule.
Friday, September 5, 2008
It begins...
As it turns out, there are a lot of words in the French language. And, as you may or may not be aware, they are often different from the words in English, which makes the learning process that much more difficult. If other languages would simply use the same words with a slightly different accent, learning another language would be so much simpler. Plus, it would certainly cut down on the misunderstandings that crop up from time to time in international relations.
I have spent some time with several books, podcasts, and websites in my attempt to learn French, and each of these things is helpful in its own way. For some reason though, the thing that works the best for me is listening to music. Maybe it is the beat in the background, the voice of the singer, or the fact that music tends to get lodged in my brain and won’t go away for days at a time so I end up with phrases repeating over and over again until I forget it, replace it with a new phrase, or go gradually insane. I can’t tell you how many times I have had “Hot Potato” by the damn Wiggles, the theme song for Thomas the Tank Engine, or something by Laurie Berkner running through my head all the live long day. Thankfully Ryan is getting away from “kids” music and moving into other genres.
As I mentioned in previous posts, he has been groomed to enjoy Metallica (“Enter Sandman” is still one of his favorite requests), and he, with the help of his dad, is now a fan of French pop music (although to be more accurate, he is a fan of French pop music circa 2001, with a few newer tunes thrown in). His personal favorite (and for the time being mine as well) is one called “Mademoiselle Juliette” by Alizee. You can catch him singing it from time to time. It's adorable.
We often have dance parties in the basement in which we play music loudly and “dance” around, (basically jumping and running and flopping on the couch), while “singing” at the top of our lungs. I know the words to the song because I have looked them up and translated them for practice, but he has no real idea what he is saying so it comes out something like this:
“MADEMOISELLE JULIETTE-AH, la, la la la TÊTE-AH, la, la, la, la, la, something - CAPULET!”
All things considered, this isn’t bad for a 4 year old. He has the rhythm of the song and he apparently can hear the main emphasis words, so I’d say he is doing fairly well. With Uncle Justin speaking Spanish with him and dad attempting French around him, he might well turn out to understand a little of both languages, which would be fairly cool.
The other day we were hanging out during his resting time (i.e. naptime on days when he simply WON’T nap) watching The Incredibles and Toy Story videos on the Disney site when Ryan asked to hear his favorite song. Since we were in a video state of mind, I asked if he would rather watch the video that goes along with it and he readily agreed. So we went to a website with music videos on it and in a few moments we were watching. He sang along and enjoyed it, asking questions about what the boy is doing, what she said, and why she didn’t like the girl in black. When it was over, he asked if there were more music videos he could see.
So I made a deal with him in which we would put the videos on the TV while we played baseball. It wasn’t terribly difficult to get him to agree to this since both were things he wanted to do, and I set up a little queue to play a few videos and we found his squishy ball and bat.
He wanted to be the pitcher first and I totally cranked his first offering into the far wall. I am unbelievably good at basement baseball when he pitches the ball exactly where my bat happens to be. He glanced at the TV for a few seconds and tossed the ball again. The next pitch didn’t go as well, and I hit the ball off the end of the bat causing it to spin erratically off and hit the TV. My boy has a different feeling regarding my abilities. “You are terrible at this, Dad,” he said.
He pitched it again and I hit this one off the top of the bat which gave the ball a little spin. This caused it to whiz toward the ceiling where it ricocheted off an exposed beam and smacked into a picture frame on the wall. The picture frame wobbled for a second and then righted itself without falling off the shelf. The ball then fell through the net of his basketball hoop and came to rest right at his feet. Surprised at what just happened, I looked at Ryan and said, “Wow! That was rather exotic, don’t you think?”
He looked at me with confusion all over his face. “Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“What does ‘exotic’ mean?”
Nuts. While I feel like I have a decent vocabulary, I am not often very good at actually defining words. I gave it a shot anyway. “Well, it means different or unusual,” I said.
“Oh. Like when Ethan poops and it gets out of his diaper and into his pants. That is exotic?”
“No, that’s gross," I said, making a face. "But it’s a start. Most of the time ‘exotic’ is used to refer to something that is out of the ordinary. Often we use it to mean far away, or interesting, or something that we haven’t really had much experience with.”
“Like the island where Dash runs on water in the Incredibles! It’s far away and very pretty.” Everything comes back to the Incredibles.
“Yeah. Just like the island in the Incredibles.”
He smiled. “Dad?” he said, eyes moving between me and the TV.
“Yep?”
He pointed at the TV which is still showing Alizee music videos. “She’s exotic.”
There wasn’t much to say after that.
I have spent some time with several books, podcasts, and websites in my attempt to learn French, and each of these things is helpful in its own way. For some reason though, the thing that works the best for me is listening to music. Maybe it is the beat in the background, the voice of the singer, or the fact that music tends to get lodged in my brain and won’t go away for days at a time so I end up with phrases repeating over and over again until I forget it, replace it with a new phrase, or go gradually insane. I can’t tell you how many times I have had “Hot Potato” by the damn Wiggles, the theme song for Thomas the Tank Engine, or something by Laurie Berkner running through my head all the live long day. Thankfully Ryan is getting away from “kids” music and moving into other genres.
As I mentioned in previous posts, he has been groomed to enjoy Metallica (“Enter Sandman” is still one of his favorite requests), and he, with the help of his dad, is now a fan of French pop music (although to be more accurate, he is a fan of French pop music circa 2001, with a few newer tunes thrown in). His personal favorite (and for the time being mine as well) is one called “Mademoiselle Juliette” by Alizee. You can catch him singing it from time to time. It's adorable.
We often have dance parties in the basement in which we play music loudly and “dance” around, (basically jumping and running and flopping on the couch), while “singing” at the top of our lungs. I know the words to the song because I have looked them up and translated them for practice, but he has no real idea what he is saying so it comes out something like this:
“MADEMOISELLE JULIETTE-AH, la, la la la TÊTE-AH, la, la, la, la, la, something - CAPULET!”
All things considered, this isn’t bad for a 4 year old. He has the rhythm of the song and he apparently can hear the main emphasis words, so I’d say he is doing fairly well. With Uncle Justin speaking Spanish with him and dad attempting French around him, he might well turn out to understand a little of both languages, which would be fairly cool.
The other day we were hanging out during his resting time (i.e. naptime on days when he simply WON’T nap) watching The Incredibles and Toy Story videos on the Disney site when Ryan asked to hear his favorite song. Since we were in a video state of mind, I asked if he would rather watch the video that goes along with it and he readily agreed. So we went to a website with music videos on it and in a few moments we were watching. He sang along and enjoyed it, asking questions about what the boy is doing, what she said, and why she didn’t like the girl in black. When it was over, he asked if there were more music videos he could see.
So I made a deal with him in which we would put the videos on the TV while we played baseball. It wasn’t terribly difficult to get him to agree to this since both were things he wanted to do, and I set up a little queue to play a few videos and we found his squishy ball and bat.
He wanted to be the pitcher first and I totally cranked his first offering into the far wall. I am unbelievably good at basement baseball when he pitches the ball exactly where my bat happens to be. He glanced at the TV for a few seconds and tossed the ball again. The next pitch didn’t go as well, and I hit the ball off the end of the bat causing it to spin erratically off and hit the TV. My boy has a different feeling regarding my abilities. “You are terrible at this, Dad,” he said.
He pitched it again and I hit this one off the top of the bat which gave the ball a little spin. This caused it to whiz toward the ceiling where it ricocheted off an exposed beam and smacked into a picture frame on the wall. The picture frame wobbled for a second and then righted itself without falling off the shelf. The ball then fell through the net of his basketball hoop and came to rest right at his feet. Surprised at what just happened, I looked at Ryan and said, “Wow! That was rather exotic, don’t you think?”
He looked at me with confusion all over his face. “Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“What does ‘exotic’ mean?”
Nuts. While I feel like I have a decent vocabulary, I am not often very good at actually defining words. I gave it a shot anyway. “Well, it means different or unusual,” I said.
“Oh. Like when Ethan poops and it gets out of his diaper and into his pants. That is exotic?”
“No, that’s gross," I said, making a face. "But it’s a start. Most of the time ‘exotic’ is used to refer to something that is out of the ordinary. Often we use it to mean far away, or interesting, or something that we haven’t really had much experience with.”
“Like the island where Dash runs on water in the Incredibles! It’s far away and very pretty.” Everything comes back to the Incredibles.
“Yeah. Just like the island in the Incredibles.”
He smiled. “Dad?” he said, eyes moving between me and the TV.
“Yep?”
He pointed at the TV which is still showing Alizee music videos. “She’s exotic.”
There wasn’t much to say after that.
Monday, July 28, 2008
"Will their skin come back on?"
This summer has been a bear. Lots of things to do and such a short time to accomplish any of them. You'd think that with both Jen and I working in schools and thus getting almost three months off during the summer that we could easily make a list of things to do and knock them off one by one. You could think that, but if you did it would be evidence that you clearly don't know who we are and how ridiculously good we are at procrastinating. For example, I have been putting off getting my brother David a college graduation present for about 11 years now.
One of the things that we have had on our list since late May is to take a family trip to the Field Museum in Chicago so Ryan could see the dinosaurs. We read a lot of books, and many of them have dinosaurs as the main characters. With all the counting, playing, chasing other dinosaurs, and learning their alphabet, the dinosaurs in his books lead very active lives. They also, without exception, all have skin. Muscles, bones, blood, and other connective tissues are assumed, but they all have skin.
He is very interested in animals and people that have skin. He is also very interested in what happens to the skin of the people and animals that shuffle off this mortal coil. We can be having a conversation about anything, and this subject will almost invariably crop up.
"Dad," he says.
"Yep," I respond.
"Why does Dash run so fast?" Dash is from the movie "The Incredibles" and is his new favorite person in the whole world. He talks about him and his movie almost nonstop.
"Well, Dash is a superhero, so he has powers that normal people don't have."
"Oh. Can I be a superhero?"
"No, not in real life. You can pretend to be a superhero if you like, though."
"Ok. Watch how fast I can run!" With this, he takes off around the living room making "VROOOM!" noises and running into things like chairs, his little brother Ethan, and the occasional wall.
"That is really fast," I exclaim. "Now, say sorry to your brother."
"Are you sure I'm not a superhero?"
"Yep. Pretty sure."
"Your dad died," he says, tactfully switching the subject.
Thankfully this is not news to me, as he has been dead for a few years now. "Yep. He did."
"His skin will come off and he will get all hard," says the four year old medical examiner. Apparently this is what you get when you make the mistake of answering a few questions truthfully. A few months ago he learned that the cat which lives at Nonnie's house was probably going to die soon, so he asked Jen and I a few questions about that. In order to answer his questions, we told him about the concepts of decomposition, rigor mortis, other facts of death which went into the little cement mixer that is his 4 year old brain and came out "skin off/hard body". Leave it to a little boy to break things down to their bare essence.
"This is true," I told him. I try not to elaborate or encourage more questions when he talks like this. Not yet, anyway.
"Lets go play soccer," he says, changing the subject yet again.
"Yes. Let's."
So on the way to the museum our little interrogator starts in with the questions about dinosaurs. "Are they all dead? Do they have skin? Why did they die? How old are they? Was the meteor that killed them alive? I'm four years old. Are they really 200 million years old? I'm not 200 million years old. Your dad is dead. Am I 200 million years old? How old is Ethan in millions of years? Who is bigger, me or a dinosaur? Why am I smaller than a dinosaur? Can a dinosaur run faster than Dash? Will their skin come back on?..." and so on. Never a dull moment in the car with that little one.
We cruised through the museum, eventually hitting the "Evolving Planet" exhibit where the dinosaurs are kept. He is too little to be really interested in the really cool stuff, like transitional fossils of tetrapod evolution, or the entire room dedicated to the evolution of humans and other hominids, but he did dig the large dinosaurs. He also loved the giant ground sloth and the other large mammals, and was even able to point out a red eyed tree frog and a macaw in their amazing picture gallery at the end of the exhibit. Overall, he seemed to get a kick out of the entire place which is exactly what we wanted to hear. Learning should be fun, and it appears that for him, at least for now and in this place, it was.
Now, if Jen and I would only learn to stop procrastinating we might be able to get to the zoo and Botanic Gardens in the few weeks we have left.
One of the things that we have had on our list since late May is to take a family trip to the Field Museum in Chicago so Ryan could see the dinosaurs. We read a lot of books, and many of them have dinosaurs as the main characters. With all the counting, playing, chasing other dinosaurs, and learning their alphabet, the dinosaurs in his books lead very active lives. They also, without exception, all have skin. Muscles, bones, blood, and other connective tissues are assumed, but they all have skin.
He is very interested in animals and people that have skin. He is also very interested in what happens to the skin of the people and animals that shuffle off this mortal coil. We can be having a conversation about anything, and this subject will almost invariably crop up.
"Dad," he says.
"Yep," I respond.
"Why does Dash run so fast?" Dash is from the movie "The Incredibles" and is his new favorite person in the whole world. He talks about him and his movie almost nonstop.
"Well, Dash is a superhero, so he has powers that normal people don't have."
"Oh. Can I be a superhero?"
"No, not in real life. You can pretend to be a superhero if you like, though."
"Ok. Watch how fast I can run!" With this, he takes off around the living room making "VROOOM!" noises and running into things like chairs, his little brother Ethan, and the occasional wall.
"That is really fast," I exclaim. "Now, say sorry to your brother."
"Are you sure I'm not a superhero?"
"Yep. Pretty sure."
"Your dad died," he says, tactfully switching the subject.
Thankfully this is not news to me, as he has been dead for a few years now. "Yep. He did."
"His skin will come off and he will get all hard," says the four year old medical examiner. Apparently this is what you get when you make the mistake of answering a few questions truthfully. A few months ago he learned that the cat which lives at Nonnie's house was probably going to die soon, so he asked Jen and I a few questions about that. In order to answer his questions, we told him about the concepts of decomposition, rigor mortis, other facts of death which went into the little cement mixer that is his 4 year old brain and came out "skin off/hard body". Leave it to a little boy to break things down to their bare essence.
"This is true," I told him. I try not to elaborate or encourage more questions when he talks like this. Not yet, anyway.
"Lets go play soccer," he says, changing the subject yet again.
"Yes. Let's."
So on the way to the museum our little interrogator starts in with the questions about dinosaurs. "Are they all dead? Do they have skin? Why did they die? How old are they? Was the meteor that killed them alive? I'm four years old. Are they really 200 million years old? I'm not 200 million years old. Your dad is dead. Am I 200 million years old? How old is Ethan in millions of years? Who is bigger, me or a dinosaur? Why am I smaller than a dinosaur? Can a dinosaur run faster than Dash? Will their skin come back on?..." and so on. Never a dull moment in the car with that little one.
We cruised through the museum, eventually hitting the "Evolving Planet" exhibit where the dinosaurs are kept. He is too little to be really interested in the really cool stuff, like transitional fossils of tetrapod evolution, or the entire room dedicated to the evolution of humans and other hominids, but he did dig the large dinosaurs. He also loved the giant ground sloth and the other large mammals, and was even able to point out a red eyed tree frog and a macaw in their amazing picture gallery at the end of the exhibit. Overall, he seemed to get a kick out of the entire place which is exactly what we wanted to hear. Learning should be fun, and it appears that for him, at least for now and in this place, it was.
Now, if Jen and I would only learn to stop procrastinating we might be able to get to the zoo and Botanic Gardens in the few weeks we have left.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
J'apprends le Français
Since my foray a few weeks ago into the world of pop culture as presented by France, I have found myself more and more enamored with the French language. The sounds, phrases, and accent of French have totally captivated me. Even when you are saying something completely banal like "I am doing fine, thanks," the language is beautiful, and I decided that I would like to be able to speak and understand it.
I do this from time to time. By "this" I mean take on projects that are completely useless to me. When am I ever going to need to speak French? I live in the Chicago area, for crying out loud - it is more likely that I will need to know how to say "please put me down - I don't like you that way" in Klingon. However, with drive times that reach into the 2 hour mark on some days due to my multiple teaching jobs, I have some free time in the car that needs filling, so why not learn a new language? I already speak spanish well enough to hold parent teacher conferences in that language if necessary, although I do have to refrain from throwing the words "pinche" ("fucking", as in "la pinche burro me golpeó con el pie en mi pinche cabeza" - "the fucking donkey kicked me in my fucking head") and "guey" (which translates into many things, depending on who is saying it and to whom it is being said, but most of them are not polite) into the conversation. (I learned much of what I know from students and players on my soccer teams.) I want a new language.
So I downloaded some podcasts from "Coffee Break French" to start the process. These podcasts are about 20 minutes in length - the length of a coffee break, hence the name - and are hosted by Mark (the teacher) and Anna (the student). In each podcast they pick a topic, like "greetings", and teach you words and phrases that fall under that heading. Obviously, the "greetings" podcast covered things like "Good morning", "How are you?", and "I'm fine, thanks," along with a variety of other things including "good-bye". There are two things I love about this podcast. First, Mark spends quite a bit of time making sure Anna is pronouncing words correctly, which is very helpful to a newbie like me. Second, they both are from Scotland, so I get to brush up on my Scottish accent while I learn French. I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I have been able to pick up in the 2 weeks since I started listening. I can now have the following conversation:
I can keep going from there, asking where they are from, where they live now, etc., but after a few more sentences I have to throw in something like "Le singe est sur la branche. C'est tout que je sais," which translates to " The monkey is on the branch. That is all I know." I suppose I could also follow it up with the French equivalent of "Well, see ya later!", but I don't think lines from the movie "Dumb and Dumber" translate properly.
Anyway, I have found myself totally digging the process of learning a language again. I forgot how much fun it can be to go from having no clue what is going on to suddenly having a tiny clue. A REALLY tiny clue. I don't claim to be able to speak, read, or write with anything near that of a first year french student, much less fluency, but I am starting the process. Perhaps I'll keep going, or perhaps I'll drop this new hobby like it was something that gets dropped quickly - a bag of flaming dog poo, for example, or an angry cat that hasn't been declawed. If the next podcasts continue to be as entertaining and helpful as the first 10, I'm sure I'll have no problem continuing.
I do this from time to time. By "this" I mean take on projects that are completely useless to me. When am I ever going to need to speak French? I live in the Chicago area, for crying out loud - it is more likely that I will need to know how to say "please put me down - I don't like you that way" in Klingon. However, with drive times that reach into the 2 hour mark on some days due to my multiple teaching jobs, I have some free time in the car that needs filling, so why not learn a new language? I already speak spanish well enough to hold parent teacher conferences in that language if necessary, although I do have to refrain from throwing the words "pinche" ("fucking", as in "la pinche burro me golpeó con el pie en mi pinche cabeza" - "the fucking donkey kicked me in my fucking head") and "guey" (which translates into many things, depending on who is saying it and to whom it is being said, but most of them are not polite) into the conversation. (I learned much of what I know from students and players on my soccer teams.) I want a new language.
So I downloaded some podcasts from "Coffee Break French" to start the process. These podcasts are about 20 minutes in length - the length of a coffee break, hence the name - and are hosted by Mark (the teacher) and Anna (the student). In each podcast they pick a topic, like "greetings", and teach you words and phrases that fall under that heading. Obviously, the "greetings" podcast covered things like "Good morning", "How are you?", and "I'm fine, thanks," along with a variety of other things including "good-bye". There are two things I love about this podcast. First, Mark spends quite a bit of time making sure Anna is pronouncing words correctly, which is very helpful to a newbie like me. Second, they both are from Scotland, so I get to brush up on my Scottish accent while I learn French. I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I have been able to pick up in the 2 weeks since I started listening. I can now have the following conversation:
"Bonjour. ça va?"
"Je suis en forme. Et tu?"
"Ca va bien, merci. Je m'appelle Jed. Comment
t'appelle-tu?
"Je m'appelle Bob. Qu'est-ce que tu faites dans la vie?"
"Je suis professeur de biology."
I can keep going from there, asking where they are from, where they live now, etc., but after a few more sentences I have to throw in something like "Le singe est sur la branche. C'est tout que je sais," which translates to " The monkey is on the branch. That is all I know." I suppose I could also follow it up with the French equivalent of "Well, see ya later!", but I don't think lines from the movie "Dumb and Dumber" translate properly.
Anyway, I have found myself totally digging the process of learning a language again. I forgot how much fun it can be to go from having no clue what is going on to suddenly having a tiny clue. A REALLY tiny clue. I don't claim to be able to speak, read, or write with anything near that of a first year french student, much less fluency, but I am starting the process. Perhaps I'll keep going, or perhaps I'll drop this new hobby like it was something that gets dropped quickly - a bag of flaming dog poo, for example, or an angry cat that hasn't been declawed. If the next podcasts continue to be as entertaining and helpful as the first 10, I'm sure I'll have no problem continuing.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Wow, that's a lot of blood.
It pays to be healthy. I know from experience that carrying around a few extra (20 or so) pounds can suck the energy out of you faster than a fat man can suck down a triple thick milkshake from McDonalds. I have been running fairly regularly for about 2 years now and, in an attempt to maintain some sort of interest in an activity that has become, for me, something comparable to waterboarding, I have changed things up a bit. I no longer run on the road since that was WAY too time consuming and rather painful at times. To find scenery that I have not seen a million times already required longer and longer runs which, unless you are able to speed up at the same time that increase distance, take more and more time. Now I bike up to my local Cardinal Fitness and spend about 15 minutes or so on the treadmill trying to go faster and faster until eventually I break the world record for the mile. Right now, if I push it, I am at about 7 minutes per mile so I don't think the world record is going to need rewriting for some time to come. This seems to have done the trick as I am now much more interested in keeping in shape than I have ever been, mostly because I can go in, knock out 2 miles or so, and then move on to the elliptical machine for a while where I can watch old episodes of Family Guy or my accumulated video podcasts of "The Onion News Network."
Jen, my wife, recently decided that she wanted to work our more regularly, and since we have two young sons we have been alternating who goes to exercise and who stays home with the little ones. The whole workout process can take up to 12 hours a day if we are not careful. Then one day she had a brilliant idea: bring the boys to the playplace at the gym so we could work out together! Surprisingly, our oldest son, Ryan, didn't have a problem with this despite the fact that when he was young he would routinely scream as though he were being eaten by tigers the minute we tried to leave him in any kind of daycare situation. Our youngest son, Ethan, also had no problems with this idea. He loved being in the playroom with his older brother and all the new toys and gizmos to which 10 month-olds are attracted. We were able to have a nice workout without incident, and even decided that we would buy a card that would allow us to bring these two little princes to the playroom whenever we came to work out.
The next time Jen brought them in was a different story, however. Ryan was still fine with it, but Ethan hadn't napped well in the morning and so was a little more on the cranky side than the last time he came in. He cried, much the way his brother had years before, like he had been stung by jellyfish. Mean ones. Lots of them. Jen had to cut her workout short and take the two boys home and wait for me to return from school before she could go back.
We tried this process again last Saturday afternoon. Again, Ryan was fine and again, Ethan cried. To ensure that at least Jen was able to complete a work out, I volunteered to take the boys to the local park to play for 40 minutes or so, vowing to return to pick her up when she was finished. So off we went, the Doyle boys, to what we call the wooden park.
This park is an amazing place. It has the typical park fare - swings, sandbox and slides - but it also has baby swings for little Ethan and what appears from outside the park to be a castle made of wood. In this castle there are small passageways for little people that wind and turn every which way. These passages often lead to dead ends but just as often they end at a staircase or ladder which will take you up a level. There are several levels to be explored in this castle and at the highest level, or battlements, the kids have access to the entire top of the structure which contains 3 different slides and several poles which can be used to slide down safely or, if we are talking about little boys playing, unsafely to the ground. There are numerous ways to have fun and just as many ways to get hurt while playing at this park. Ryan loves it and so do I.
We played on the baby swings for a while to calm Ethan down a bit, and once we had accomplished that task, Ryan set out to patrol the castle. He made it to the top with no problems and even struck up one of those 5 minute best-friendships that are so common a this age. The new BFF's were two slightly older boys who looked to be about 6. They were playing tag and invited Ryan to be part of the game. He was more than happy to play the part of the tagger due to the fact that he has seen "The Incredibles" about 700 times in the past week and is now convinced that he can run as fast as one of the little superheroes from the movie, Dash. Watching the boys take off on their initial runs I was surprised at how fast he actually was. Clearly we are not in the superhero speed range, but for a 4 year old he is fairly spry. The older boys even commented on his speed as well which made Ryan all the more likely to throw caution to the wind and put all his energy into moving faster.
After a few laps around the park almost being caught by my boy, the older kids decided that they needed a new tactic. Being slightly older made them slightly smarter, which allowed them to work out the fact that if they cruised into the castle passageways, Ryan's speed wouldn't trouble them so much. That little tactic worked like a charm, and Ryan immediately fell behind in the chase. He would get halfway up the ladders inside and would look down to see the two older boys running away. With an audible sound of disgust, he'd climb back down and begin the chase again only to have the other boys employ the same passages to evade him. This lasted for a few minutes with everyone enjoying themselves when Ryan ran around the back of the castle where I couldn't see him. He was only behind there for a few seconds when I heard a THUD followed loud screams.
I came down from my perch with Ethan in my arms and made my way to where Ryan was. One of the little boys who had been playing with Ryan came out from the passages and said to me, nonchalantly, "Wow, that's a lot of blood." Ryan came out next holding his mouth and face which was, and I must give the other little boy credit here, covered with a lot of blood. I grabbed his hand and quickly took him to the car where we used the last of Ethan's baby wipes to clean up most of the blood from his face and clothes. The two boys brought a bottle of water for us to use to help clean up and said that they hoped he'd be ok, which was actually really nice to hear. He got blood all over his shirt and his Manchester United shorts, so he wasn't thrilled with that, but by the time we got back to Cardinal, he had stopped bleeding.
Jen had to cut her workout short because Ryan kept asking for his mom, but she was more than happy to do it, not because it got her off the treadmill, but because she is a great mom and does a wonderful job of taking care of her little boys. Eventually we will figure out a work-out schedule that doesn't involve crying or bleeding children, but until that day comes, I'm gonna make sure that the baby wipes and pacifiers are kept well stocked in the diaper bag.
Jen, my wife, recently decided that she wanted to work our more regularly, and since we have two young sons we have been alternating who goes to exercise and who stays home with the little ones. The whole workout process can take up to 12 hours a day if we are not careful. Then one day she had a brilliant idea: bring the boys to the playplace at the gym so we could work out together! Surprisingly, our oldest son, Ryan, didn't have a problem with this despite the fact that when he was young he would routinely scream as though he were being eaten by tigers the minute we tried to leave him in any kind of daycare situation. Our youngest son, Ethan, also had no problems with this idea. He loved being in the playroom with his older brother and all the new toys and gizmos to which 10 month-olds are attracted. We were able to have a nice workout without incident, and even decided that we would buy a card that would allow us to bring these two little princes to the playroom whenever we came to work out.
The next time Jen brought them in was a different story, however. Ryan was still fine with it, but Ethan hadn't napped well in the morning and so was a little more on the cranky side than the last time he came in. He cried, much the way his brother had years before, like he had been stung by jellyfish. Mean ones. Lots of them. Jen had to cut her workout short and take the two boys home and wait for me to return from school before she could go back.
We tried this process again last Saturday afternoon. Again, Ryan was fine and again, Ethan cried. To ensure that at least Jen was able to complete a work out, I volunteered to take the boys to the local park to play for 40 minutes or so, vowing to return to pick her up when she was finished. So off we went, the Doyle boys, to what we call the wooden park.
This park is an amazing place. It has the typical park fare - swings, sandbox and slides - but it also has baby swings for little Ethan and what appears from outside the park to be a castle made of wood. In this castle there are small passageways for little people that wind and turn every which way. These passages often lead to dead ends but just as often they end at a staircase or ladder which will take you up a level. There are several levels to be explored in this castle and at the highest level, or battlements, the kids have access to the entire top of the structure which contains 3 different slides and several poles which can be used to slide down safely or, if we are talking about little boys playing, unsafely to the ground. There are numerous ways to have fun and just as many ways to get hurt while playing at this park. Ryan loves it and so do I.
We played on the baby swings for a while to calm Ethan down a bit, and once we had accomplished that task, Ryan set out to patrol the castle. He made it to the top with no problems and even struck up one of those 5 minute best-friendships that are so common a this age. The new BFF's were two slightly older boys who looked to be about 6. They were playing tag and invited Ryan to be part of the game. He was more than happy to play the part of the tagger due to the fact that he has seen "The Incredibles" about 700 times in the past week and is now convinced that he can run as fast as one of the little superheroes from the movie, Dash. Watching the boys take off on their initial runs I was surprised at how fast he actually was. Clearly we are not in the superhero speed range, but for a 4 year old he is fairly spry. The older boys even commented on his speed as well which made Ryan all the more likely to throw caution to the wind and put all his energy into moving faster.
After a few laps around the park almost being caught by my boy, the older kids decided that they needed a new tactic. Being slightly older made them slightly smarter, which allowed them to work out the fact that if they cruised into the castle passageways, Ryan's speed wouldn't trouble them so much. That little tactic worked like a charm, and Ryan immediately fell behind in the chase. He would get halfway up the ladders inside and would look down to see the two older boys running away. With an audible sound of disgust, he'd climb back down and begin the chase again only to have the other boys employ the same passages to evade him. This lasted for a few minutes with everyone enjoying themselves when Ryan ran around the back of the castle where I couldn't see him. He was only behind there for a few seconds when I heard a THUD followed loud screams.
I came down from my perch with Ethan in my arms and made my way to where Ryan was. One of the little boys who had been playing with Ryan came out from the passages and said to me, nonchalantly, "Wow, that's a lot of blood." Ryan came out next holding his mouth and face which was, and I must give the other little boy credit here, covered with a lot of blood. I grabbed his hand and quickly took him to the car where we used the last of Ethan's baby wipes to clean up most of the blood from his face and clothes. The two boys brought a bottle of water for us to use to help clean up and said that they hoped he'd be ok, which was actually really nice to hear. He got blood all over his shirt and his Manchester United shorts, so he wasn't thrilled with that, but by the time we got back to Cardinal, he had stopped bleeding.
Jen had to cut her workout short because Ryan kept asking for his mom, but she was more than happy to do it, not because it got her off the treadmill, but because she is a great mom and does a wonderful job of taking care of her little boys. Eventually we will figure out a work-out schedule that doesn't involve crying or bleeding children, but until that day comes, I'm gonna make sure that the baby wipes and pacifiers are kept well stocked in the diaper bag.
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