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October 25, 2004

"Frosted Quakes" or "The Lizards Are Having a Dinner Party Under My Bed"

You wear alot of hats as a Sunday school teacher. Teacher (of course), policeman, child psychologist, crayon therapist, and butt wiper to name a few. The last of those, while not often, occurs one time too many for my tastes.

It's not as if kids remember this sortof thing, which scares me even more. In my life people have cleaned my intimates, and I don't remember it happening. In my life people have cleaned my intimates, and they do remember it happening. This is probably why father-son relationships can be so difficult: once you've wiped somebodies backside taking them seriously takes a good 25-40 years to develop.

This Sunday I wore the hat of "Child Speech Therapist." I & J, and I'm guessing all 2 and 3 year olds, have the remarkable ability to spew out hundreds of hundreds of "near words" without communicating anything intelligible to me, the listener. Most kids at a certain age, I'm convinced, speak only in vowels.

Isabelle, specifically, can't pronounce her L's and R's. Its as if I'm doing ESL in Japan and my student is a 2 foot tall hyper Japanese person with a penchant for the color blue. Today Isabelle struts into class and announces that last night the "Lizards Had A Dinner Party Under My Bed." To me it sounds like "wizards", and I wrote it off as her 2 year imagination wrapped up in her father's obsession with fantasy writing. Except she seemed really scared of these "wizards" and she kept talking about their tails and how they like to eat bugs. Finally I put two and two together and decided I'd help her try to pronounced her L's. She didn't really take to this. At all.

Josiah on the other hand has a rabid obsession with his consonants specifically consonants on the end of words. He likes them so much he adds them to words that don't have consonants on the end. Rainbow becomes "Rainboat" for example. He really digs words with hard consonants, like the letters D, T, and K.

I have to bribe the kids each Sunday to do their Westminster Children's Catechism questions. While I feel quite strongly that hte Westminster Shorter & Longer catechism plays a huge part in why most of the OPC is filled with, quite frankly, abstract dorks who float around in their little theological theme-parks immunte to the world around them, the children's catechism for the most part really gets to the basics of the Gospel. I still remember the questions, so in spite of the Curriculum apparently being written by people who've never actually interacted with 2 and 3 year olds, the children's catechism is one part I'm going to keep.

But like I said, I have to bribe the kids to answer their catechism questions. I promise them cereal, they tell my why God made all things: "for His own glory." So far it works well, they get cereal, I get answers, and then I get some cereal too. Josiah this past Sunday was fascinated with the words "Frosted Flakes." He kept saying them over and over again except he pronounced them "Frosted Quakes." For some reason he couldn't get out the "FL" sound.

Josiah is usually far more amenable to my tangential lessons, at least more than Isabelle is, though that's likely because Isabelle is averse to any sortof narrative outside of her own involving lizards and turning on and off any light-switch she can get her small hands on. Josiah though, being fascinated with the words Frosted Flakes was more than willing to accept my help in pronouncing it correctly.

After what seemed like an eternity of trying, after making over-exaggerated mouthings of the "fl" sound Josiah was finally able to correctly pronounced the two words together. He was able to say "flakes" independent of the "frosted" a dozen times over, but for some reason when we put the two together it immediately became "quakes." As hard as I tried I could find no reason why this was the case.

When he was finally able to pronounce "frosted flakes" correctly there were high-fives and silly yelling all around. I always like to take the energy up a notch when the kids do good things. I know its an outworking of my personality, but dangit when possible I'm gonna make sure that working hard and doing something right generates massive fun. Hopefully I'll be able to balance it out later with the flipside.

What happened next really wierded me out: post-high-fives and hooting, Josiah and Isabelle proceeded to talk to each other in complete babble. Seriously, Josiah would look at isabelle and make a wierd face and go "bla bla bla" Isabelle would respond "blaarrrruggghhh weee wee" and this went back and forth till I snapped out of my hypnotic stupor long enough to chime in with my own wierd sounds, at which point I quickly realized that this had gotten competely out of hand (I think) and neither kids nor adults should be making such a nonesensical racket.

It was fun though let me tell you. I tried it on April on the ride home and she gave me a really disapproving look. That's ok though. In a week I'll have a chance to do it again with a couple of people who even though they don't understand wont find it the least bit out of the ordinary.

Josiah Q. Roe | By Josiah Roe | 10:20 AM

Comments

Hilarious... Bailey and I were working on the word "Ball" yesterday. She can get the "Bah" but the "L" just isn't happening. Pretty good for an 11 month old, though! She's already got "Dada" and "Mama" and "Bah-bye."

BTW, man, you're missing a [/em] or a [/i] somewhere in your post!

Posted by: John H at October 25, 2004 10:41 AM

"...I feel quite strongly that the Westminster Shorter & Longer catechism plays a huge part in why most of the OPC is filled with, quite frankly, abstract dorks who float around in their little theological theme-parks immune to the world around them...."

LOL! This quote should go somewhere. Maybe as a theme for the next New Horizons:

"Abstract Dorks: Are We Full of Them?"

Featuring:

* The Catechisms and the Doctrines of Dorkification
* Systematics: A Brief Study of How God Hasn't Revealed Himself
* "Really? THAT'S a Sin?" - The Larger Catechism and Personal Ethics

Posted by: Phil at October 25, 2004 11:40 AM

Nothing wrong with bribing kids to say their catechism questions. I do it every night.

Posted by: scott cunningham at October 25, 2004 01:18 PM

Josiah, this weekly thing has instilled more respect for you than anything that you have done since I have known you.

We need to hang out soon. We just can't talk about the Red Sox or music.

Posted by: crabby at October 25, 2004 05:01 PM

The funny thing about your curriculum is that my wife works for the company that writes it. I told her to pass you weekly commentary on to her boss (the director of the publishing department).

Posted by: Timmy at October 25, 2004 05:44 PM

Hey son, I remember when you were learning the chldren's catechism. We thought (big mistake) you understanding everything, afterall, you were our first born, and everyone knows first borns are always on the genius level.Then one time who asked, in response to the answer of one of the questions, "If Adam had obeyed God, He would have been rewarded with "life." and you said, "And what other kind of cereal would God have given Adam, mommy?" Well, it's looks like its your turn to be the inquisitor and your even getting some cereal in the process. Luv ya dude, Pa

Posted by: JQ's dad at October 25, 2004 10:32 PM

I never liked New Horizons much. Perhaps it's my artsiness but somehow their view of worship seemed more like a bunch of words floating around than the presence of Christ.

Posted by: Evan Donovan at October 26, 2004 02:29 AM