D4 is enraptured with the William Blake poem, "The Tyger." We borrowed a book from the library that included it along with a vivid illustration of a tiger, and now he begs for it, "Tiger tiger burning bright, in da forest of da night!" However, trying to explain poetic imagery to a curious but literal-minded 2 and a half year old is a challenge.
Blake: "Tyger, tyger, burning bright/In the forest of the night."
D4: You said bright! It's not bright!
QOC: Well, it's bright orange.
Blake: "What immortal hand or eye/could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies/burnt the fire of thine eyes?"
D4: You said fire! There's no fire!
QOC: Well, the tiger kind of looks like a fire.
Blake: (continues on to the end of the poem.)
D4: Read it again!
D4 also believes he, personally, owns the Eiffel Tower and has climbed it many times. He talks about it in long, convoluted stories that we can barely follow. If it turns up in a picture in a book (which it does often, because we're studying France right now), he won't let us ever turn the page again.
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Thanks to some good friends, we got some amazing portraits of the ducklings last weekend, which I will post when I get around to it. What amused me was the way the different ducklings reacted to the picture shoot. D1 was cooperative, but stiff. The photographer started asking her about her favorite story (Cinderella) and she immediately became relaxed and animated for some great shots. D2 was somewhat abstracted, and when the photographer started asking him about Robin Hood, he became so abstracted he could hardly look at the camera. D4 was cooperative but clueless. D3 sat down on the stool, tipped her head just so, and smiled her most photogenic smile.
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Sadly, DOB's grandfather died last weekend. He has flown out there for the funeral (and, conveniently, his sister's wedding and the brotherly Super Bowl bash). Well, actually he's flying to Minneapolis this morning and then hoping they start flying planes into Ohio again sometime soon. They keep canceling his flight and moving it later owing to the blizzard. B5 is flying back with him.
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I'm going to be taking a course in Seattle in two weeks that will allow me to get my active law license back. It's an intense two-day course meant to be almost as annoying as retaking the bar exam. With that and the trip to Ohio, DOB and I will be apart nearly as much this month as we have in our previous seven and a half years.
2 comments:
I haven't commented lately, but it's not because I haven't enjoyed the updates. I've been laughing about "you said fire, there isn't any fire!" all day.
-- SJ
We'll take good care of the Duke, and send him back in reasonably good shape.
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