Family Life

We were at a Swiss National Day celebration today, held at a local farming museum. We started off at the festivities and then moved on to wander around the museum grounds when the kids got restless. There was yodeling and alp horns and cowbells and accordion and fiddle and singing, some of it in English, a lot of it in German. We managed to arrive at the exact moment the speeches ended and the live entertainment started. How’s that for timing?

The older boys enjoyed the music. Micah thought it was a bit loud at first, and altogether too enthusiastic, but he got used to it after a while and didn’t mind the racket. Daniel remembered (from previous years) there were crafts upstairs, so he was eager to go. I took him up to see what was on offer, a little apprehensive about anything that required fine motor skills or involved paint. One of the tables had sheets of paper, colored markers, and a book on paper airplanes. Since Daniel likes making things and he likes planes, this looked ideal.

Having never graduated past the basic paper dart myself, I was curious to see what the book had to offer. So we sat down. I started to leaf through the book (starting at the beginning, of course) and settled for the second example. The book called it “simple but effective.” Just what we wanted. I grabbed a sheet of paper and started at step 1, folding in half and then on the diagonal. Simple, just like the book said. Excellent! By about step 2 Daniel was asking if we could fly it yet. I flipped over a couple of pages to see how much further we had to go. The design went to step 16! Boy, if this was simple I’d hate to see something advanced!

By step 8 the book was asking me to turn the front of the plane inside out, with diagrams that I’m sure made perfect sense to the author but to me just demonstrated that things would go a whole lot better if only I had a pair of scissors. By step 12 the book required me to warp the fabric of the universe and complete a university course in the fifth dimension before my paper airplane would even begin to resemble the diagrams. And all along I had a small boy at my elbow insisting that surely he could fly the plane now.

As I dubiously completed the last step, all of a sudden the plane I was making looked exactly like the final picture in the book. Amazing! I wasn’t sure how I’d managed it or if I could do it again if I tried, but I felt pretty pleased with myself. I gave it an experimental throw. I was shocked! The plane flew the entire length of the crafts room! All that engineering knowledge was transferred from book to folded paper while bypassing my brain entirely. I took back the imprecations I’d muttered under my breath against the book’s author. Yes! Simple and effective!

By then the live entertainment had decided to go for a break, so we headed out into the fresh air. Once outside, Daniel’s first question was, Why do horses go to the toilet on the road? Ahh! Bracing country aromas.

The museum had the usual: an authentic country church, schoolhouse, blacksmith, store, and so on. Barns, cows, horses, wagons, and tractors. My, how Joel loved looking at the tractors! “Look Daddy! There’s a little tractor!” Pause. “It’s a big one, actually.” There were big ones, little ones, gas-powered, diesel-powered, steam-powered. The very oldest ones were gray, but the rest were all red. We’d all dressed in red for the Swiss Day celebrations so it seemed quite appropriate.

We all enjoyed the afternoon and headed home tired but happy. Daniel and Joel had been given a red helium balloon each, and at home they were delightedly playing with them. They discovered that if they let them go the balloons would drift up to the ceiling and stay there. This created a momentary panic because now the strings were out of reach. Some frantic rearranging of the furniture (by the boys) allowed them to recover their balloons. From then on they were very careful to only let go the string by a chair or table. Daniel wanted to know what made them stick to the ceiling.

I was in the kitchen helping get a meal ready when I heard a Bang! from the living room. I rushed in and saw Joel holding the shredded remains of his balloon in his hand. I asked what happened. He looked up at me with an angelic smile and said, “I bit it!” I took the pieces from his hand and threw them in the garbage. I was expecting some fuss from the loss of his balloon, but he seemed unaffected by the experience.

A short time later, back in the kitchen, I heard another Bang! from the living room, followed by a scream. I rushed in and once again saw Joel holding the shredded remains of a balloon in his hand. “I bit Daniel’s balloon.” The kid had exploded a balloon in his face and liked it so much he decided to do it again! Daniel was in the corner screaming his rage at the loss of his balloon. He immediately wanted to go back to Swiss Day and get another one. Joel was duly punished for his naughtiness, and I tried to comfort Daniel. I could sympathize. I get attached to things as well, especially stuff that’s so much fun. And I get mad at people that have no respect for my stuff. But the balloon was gone and there was no bringing it back. Daniel was inconsolable.

We ate, then the boys had a bath and a bedtime story, and promptly went to sleep. A long day in the hot sun means a quiet evening for the parents. It was a good day.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 11:00 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.