Viewing: Benjamin Blümchen, Benjamin Blümchen bei den Eskimos (26 min.), Die kleinen Schildkröten (26 min.); Benjamin Blümchen findet einen Schatz (26 min.); Let's Play Kung Fu Panda, Episode 2 (20:00).
J has been asking to listen to the Dahl story again. The last time was just over four months ago. Whereas before he was just getting attuned to the funny grammar and syntax mistakes the BFG makes, this time he is very aware of a lot of them and laughs at them independently of me. We had a long conversation about Sophie's and BFG's conversation about whether flowers and trees and other plants have feelings like animals. J said he didn't think they did, but was open to the possibility that they do.
When my wife and I ask J questions about his friends at school, he rarely responds with much information. "Yes" and "no "and maybe short sentence or two. Today, when I started playing the friendship audiobook, wow, the floodgates opened, and with practically every scene J was interrupting and describing at length and in great detail and nuance the—similar or contrasting—dynamics between himself and his closest friends at school. I learned more about these friends during this half an hour than during this whole past year.
One very funny thing he said in this conversation: "Weißt du Papa, warum ich und T und D und M so gute Freunde sind? Zwei Bedeutungen: Erstens, weil wir alle Quasselstrippen sind, zweitens, weil wir alle ganz albern sind."
The children's songs (Kinderlieder) are traditional German songs about spring. We've been listening to this particular collection for exactly a year. The arrangements are pretty saccharine, but the sound quality is excellent, the lyrics are very clearly sung, and they also scroll accross the screen with the music. As he plays, J has been stopping to watch and read them a good bit.
This year I let the music play in the background as we do things around the house. Last year I was much more focused. I printed out the words to many of the songs, pasted them in J's art book, and together we made matching drawings and talked about the songs. Here are several of those:
Occasionally we have made our own lyrics to the melodies. Here's one of several stanzas we have written after "Alle meine Entchen":
Since J is a skunk nut, using the scenario and the melody to "Der Kuckuck und der Esel," we composed a poem about a stink battle between a skunk and an Iltis, a related species that also uses scent glands as a means of defense.
The lyrics are:
Das Stinktier und der Iltis,
die hatten einmal Streit:
Wer wohl am schlimmsten stänke,
Wer wohl am schlimmsten stänke,
zur schönen Maienzeit [oder Stinkezeit],
zur schönen Maienzeit.
Das Stinktier sagt: "Das kann ich!"
Und fing zu stinken an.
"Das aber kann ich besser,
das aber kann ich besser!",
fiel gleich der Iltis ein,
fiel gleich der Iltis ein.
Das stank so schlimm und furchtbar,
so schlimm von fern und nah.
Die stanken alle beide,
die stanken alle beide,
Zzzt, zzzt, zzzt, zzzt [Spritzgeräusche], plttt, plttt [Pupsgeräusche]!
Zzzt, zzzt, zzzt, zzzt, plttt, plttt!
Total audio 2015: 21:30
Total video 2015: 41.45
Age 5.6.6
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