I Don't Eat That

Silas has learned how to read labels and in that learning he has become, well, somewhat intolerable.

So we were starved creatures one day while we were in Virginia, having just finished an exhausting tramp through the local library. The cure is to get a snack, obviously. However, as quickly as I could put yummy snacks into the basket, Silas tore them out again.

"No, Mom, not this applesauce. I won't eat it."

"What? Okay. How bout some granola bars?"

"No."

"How about these nuts? Some juice? Crackers?"

"No, Mom. It all has high fructose corn syrup in it." He placed everything back on the shelf methodically but sternly, as if he were the newest Anti-Corn Syrup Enforcement unit. And finally, after nestling the last item--some lovely peaches in light syrup--back on the shelf, he gently sat down on the floor and buried his face in his hands. "I can't eat anything here!"

And he didn't. Somewhere along the way he blithely jumped onto the "I-don't-eat-high-fructose-corn-syrup" wagon and waved at us as it pulled away. I, however, was too busy doing something...something...who knows what. I never saw him make that jump until it was too late.

Our entire summer was spent with Silas sneakily reading labels and refusing the sweet stuff. At one point as he went whizzing down a gigantic hill in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he yelled, "I don't like the United States for eating but I love it for the bike rides! Yahooooooooo!"

So now we have returned to Oman, where finding much of anything that contains high fructose corn syrup is a challenge, and the boy is like a starved dog outside of a sausage factory. He sucks the air up in great greedy gulps, dissecting the odors that are all around us. "Oooo...I can smell curry. Oh, is that adobo? Mmmmm...I smell someone cooking rotis."

The air is thick right now with the heat and humidity of the end of summer, but the ocean breezes are starting to give us an occasional cooling puff and carry the smell of food far from the place it is cooked. This morning, in the quiet just after fajr...the dawn prayer...I was wrapped in a blanket of ocean air and then the breeze shifted and I was surrounded by the aromas of what smelled like Filipino food--garlic, vinegar, soy sauce, coconut oil. If Silas had been out with me, he would have left a trail of drool back to the house.

And it smelled like breakfast. But not the kind with corn syrup in it, for that would make the boy child cry.

German Lessons

Germany is closed on Sundays. This is what you learn when you fly with a six-year-old tyrant who has an earache and needs a strong infusion of ibuprofen. Or an attitude adjustment.

Germany is also a place that makes nine-year-old boys giggle because innocuous German words look like naughty English ones.

To go to Germany as a non-German-speaking-mother-turned-tour-guide was, as a good friend suggested, possibly one of the oddest things I have ever done. The internet was loathe to give up its secrets regarding what a family could do in Germany, aside from drink beer and eat sausages. While Tian was extremely eager to undertake the drinking of beer if only to secure bragging rights, I was not so enthusiastic about the proposition. Imagine.

So at first blush Germany did not promise much in the way of a good time for my accompanying minors, but the stopover was courtesy of the Sultan so stop we did, and learn I did. But I didn't run into Yoda.

Not surprising, my children had an agenda upon touch-down in Franfort. Item number one on their list was pork sausage acquisition. Within Frankfort Airport, aside from a small city's worth of pharmacies, grocery stores, and bookstores, is a sausage store that serves up grilled tubes of meat at all hours of the day.

Having forgotten that much of the Western world thrives on astonishing serving sizes we each ordered a plate of sausages with french fries. We also forgot that pork takes some getting used to after 9 months away from the stuff. That is as far as Tian could get on her plate. Sad stuff, I know.

A train ride out of the airport propelled us into the countryside before we could say "Sparkasse", and landed us in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

This was the most German town we four tourists had ever seen (outside of Germany at Busch Gardens Williamsburg) and we learned that it is the only town in Germany that has a chemist who is open on a Sunday and willing to sell painkillers for a six-year-old tyrant. We also learned the value of brushing teeth at least once in 24 hours, as well as what it takes to make three children look abandoned within the town square of any given European city. 

There is great value in sleeping on a stranger's floor, especially when that stranger also has a boy who loves to make fart noises and can play a mean game of war.

  This may have been the most powerful lesson that we learned in Germany, and the one I most want my children to take away from these years of being able to travel the world. Strangers are not strangers after just a few hours spent together. Imagine what would happen if we would require soldiers and generals from opposing sides of  any battle to have a sleepover. One evening spent making fart noises, running around in town, and eating spaghetti does so much to allow one person to know another.

We learned so much in Germany in 72 hours that our heads still spin with the experience, and when the once-stranger's mother and I mentioned that this arrangement we had undertaken--an American family sleeping peacefully on the floor of a German family--would not have been possible not so many decades ago, the children were baffled. Inconceivable. How could this not have been possible at any point in time? We had such fun.

And Germany does have a lot to do. Especially for families. Anybody up for a German excursion next summer?

Did You See That? Never Mind.

Seals. They lay around on flat surfaces. They make funny noises. And they must eat a lot judging from their size.

Silas. He lays around on flat surfaces. He makes funny noises. And he eats a lot. Obviously my son gives all signs and indications of being a seal. And yet recently he has begun to move away from sealdom and toward what may be a promising future in...noticing things. Sometimes. Okay, rarely. Maybe.

A few days ago, Tehva poured herself a bowl of Heart-to-Heart Kashi cereal. You know, the kind that resembles little hearts in structure and sweetened cardboard in taste and texture. As Tehva poured on the organic whole milk, rejoicing in her new found ability to fill a bowl to the rim without spilling a drop, tiny black bugs floated to the top.

"Ewwwww!" Tehva whined. "There are bugs in my cereal!" I gave Tehva a Tupperware and showed her how to skim the bugs off the surface and into the Tupperware so that she could chow down on a bug-free breakfast. (Of course she ate it! That was organic milk and that stuff ain't cheap!) Silas silently looked on and then uttered a single syllable: "Ew." See? He noticed!

And then we visited Jamestown National Park, nestled along the James River. We were all peering intently at an archaeologist screening dirt in order to find tiny bits, heads bent in concentration, knotted tightly in a group of tourists, when suddenly Silas screamed, "Whoa! Mom! Look!" Everyone paused and did a collective readjustment, squinting or bowing heads to look more closely at the dirt in front of us. "Look! A cargo ship! On the river!" What an observant boy.

And then there was the top of the hour news stories that we were listening to on NPR the other day. After the five minutes of talk about Syria, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, and American troops, Silas sighed. "Why is this always about war?" Wow. He noticed and judging from his use of the word "always" he has noticed this trend before. I was nearly dancing in the driver's seat.

A Google search on "observation skills in boys" yields nearly one and a half million hits, so obviously someone other than Silas has issues with this. The first thought that comes to mind when I consider his inability to see any further in front of him than a video game at arm's length is to Google, "Ways to improve observational skills in boys." All of the solutions that surface are decidedly feminine and include sketching flowers, writing journals, and staring for long periods at photos of random individuals doing odd things like wearing umbrellas on their heads (my apologies to you men out there who enjoy such activities...I didn't say you were feminine...please keep your head. Er, heads?). And Silas is so not into any of those things.

My intention by doing this search, of course, was to find a way to incorporate observational skill development into this year's curriculum along with the thousand other things we all hope to incorporate in the school day. However, this past year I came to realize that in my little homeschool there is not enough time for everything I (or they) want to study, and that even if we really really want to study something, most days we are mentally finished by 2 p.m. And that's on a good day.

And so if anyone out there has any ideas about ways to develop observation skills in boys that don't involve flowers, sketching, writing long entries in journals, or bizarre photos, please let me know.