dinner conversations

Our dinner table conversations are not usually terribly interesting - a series of nagging reminders to sit down, use silverware and napkins, eat your food, ask to be excused - interspersed with play-by-play reports of Sebastian's recess soccer games and overly long, meandering, occasionally pointless descriptions by Liesl of something someone possibly once said. (Ah, family dinner!)

But we've had some remarkably good and interesting - even challenging - conversations in the last week. We had a long discussion about money, in particular loans and mortgages versus savings and interest, and what it means to put your money in a bank. Sebastian was very confused by the idea that if you went to the bank where you put your money, it wasn't exactly your money that was sitting there. I had a tough time explaining both electronic money and interest rates to children who don't quite grasp percentages. Liesl was astounded that we had a 30-year mortgage on our house and that it wouldn't be quite ours until we finished paying it off; Sebastian was concerned about what would happen if we stopped paying the mortgage. It was really quite good stuff.

We had another conversation about maiden names, and specifically who changes their name upon marriage, and why, and why you might not do so. Liesl knows that I have my own name, of course, and was curious what the maiden names of Grandmas Raab and Avery had been, and why they had changed. Sebastian thought it would be super confusing for a long time to be called by a different name - "they'd call your name out and you wouldn't answer!" Liesl decided to be herself, an Avery Raab, forever.  :) We'll see, but I won't be surprised.

There have been ants in our bathroom and living room this week and we have thus set out ant traps, filled with nasty pesticides. Liesl has been very reluctant to crush the ants, carefully attempting to pick them up and take them outside. When she and I were talking about the ants, she compared us to mean giants, who were unfairly killing the ants, and asked how I would feel about some giant squishing me with his thumb. She was happy that there were fewer ants coming into the house until I explained that the point of the poison was to carry it back to the nest. She thought that was not fair at all, to kill off the whole colony, including the ones who had never come into our house at all, and questioned why we are killing anything. She's also been concerned about all the worms covering the pavement after a rainstorm - worry that they'll get stepped on, or drowned, or dried out, or run over, or eaten by birds. We decided that worms have tough lives.

Sebastian periodically reads questions from a dinner-table question box that we have, and this week he produced cards asking "what would be your family business?" and "would your family members rather sleep, watch tv, or be outdoors?" and "in what ways do your parents embarrass you?". We agreed that our family business would be birthday parties: I'd cook the food and make a cake, Liesl could decorate, Steve could make up the games and treasure hunts, and Sebastian could help coordinate events and organize children. Everyone preferred to be outdoors.

In less fun news, Liesl wore her rollerskating wrist guard to school on Tuesday, seriously impinging on her ability to write, draw, type, and play on the playground. I didn't realize that she had it on all day until I picked her up at the end. I scolded her for carrying her pretend play to school, and then it turned out that she had told the technology teacher that Sebastian knocked her over while playing basketball and had broken her arm! And the tech teacher got angry at Seb for it!! (Poor Sebastian, getting in trouble in front of his classmates for something he hadn't done, and had no idea about.) L and I had a good conversation about remembering what was true and what was pretend play, and I thought everything was solved/understood/clear. But then she snuck the godforsaken wrist guard in her backpack to school again on Wednesday! She waited until I left to put it on and then pretended once again all morning that her arm was injured/broken. The truth finally came out after lunch, and Mrs. LaTocha made her take it off, and explained that she had to tell the truth to her teacher, etc. Liesl was so upset - humiliated and embarrassed - and in tears when I picked her up. But when I asked her, she told me that she had felt sick and was too shy to go to the nurse's office - it was only after an email from Mrs. L. that I learned what had actually happened. What a mess! She was probably looking to garner attention and sympathy, and instead dug herself into a deeper and deeper hole of untruths. Sigh. I hope some lesson was learned, and I don't just mean by me about the continually changing but ever-present challenges of parenting.