Media today 35

Roger Hargreaves, Mister Weihnachten. 

J loved the joke Was ist braun und klebrig und läuft durch die Wüste? — ein Karamel! and wanted to hear it four times.

Age 5.1.29

Puppetry today 6

Today Ulli—who, being a friend of Remy, knows a lot about cooking—helped us out with noodle making.

Sabine pitched in to help J with the cranking:

In addition to some good practice for J in talking about some basic mechanical operations, this was a chance for me to practice a couple of words whose gender I frequently screw up:

der die Kurbel
der die Klammer

Roadtrip puppetry

I do a lot of puppetry on long family roadtrips when my wife is taking her turns driving and I'm in the front passenger seat. 

Things usually resolve themselves into a single game or basic routine that J wants to repeat over and over. This time it involved the piggies trying to steal J's drawing utensils while he tried to prevent it, with my wife and myself playing various mediator and trickster roles.

Here is a video bit recorded by my wife. The piggies are trying to bribe Eeyore (Eselchen) with thistles so that he will hand over some of J's colored pencils. It was raining, so the sound quality was not great.

During these games I try to introduce new vocabulary and expressions, which then get endlessly repeated and varied. The goal is to have J using some of the material independently by the end of the game. This trip we worked on the following new and newish words and expressions:

aushecken (einen Plan, etc.)
ausplaudern
davon
     jemand hat etwas nun davon
geschehen
     jemandem geschieht recht
hineinreden
     jemandem hineinreden
Hose
     in die Hose gehen
Kosten
      auf seine Kosten kommen
kurz
     (nicht) zu kurz kommen
lohnen
     sich (nicht) lohnen
mopsen
     jemandem etwas wegmopsen
rechnen
     mit etwas rechnen 
Schliche     
     jemandem auf die Schliche kommen
     die Schliche von jemandem kennen
tuscheln, Tuschelei
Verrat, Verräter
verraten
     den Plan verraten
weismachen
    jemandem etwas weismachen

Roadtrip reading and listening

Everglades roadtrip Dec. 18-23.

Reading: Max Kruse, Urmel aus dem Eis, ch. 15; Roger Hargreaves, Mister Schlotter, Mister Unverschämt. 

Listening; Ingo Siegner, Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss und der große Zauberer, Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss: Hab' keine Angst; Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss und die wilden Piraten; Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss und der geheimnisvolle Tempel; Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss auf der Suche nach Atlantis (all between 40-50 min.)

Age 5.1.22-28

Media today 34

Listening: Albert E. erklärt unsere Sonne, 21:50-38:30. 

Viewing: Urmel, episodes 3 (23:13) and 4 (23:30). 

At min. 28:00 in the Albert E. audiobook there was a pun that J wanted to hear several times: "Obwohl Sauerstoff Sauerstoff heißt, sind wir gar nicht sauer, wenn wir Sauerstoff einatmen." He also interrupted at one point to give an account of how the tides work: "Am Montag kommt der ganze Mond heraus und zieht die Wellen hoch."  

The last time J watched some of the Urmel show was about a year and two months ago. He didn't get into it; it was too linguistically challenging and fast-paced for him at that point. Now, he actually requested it this morning, and while watching he would call out commentary and make comparisons to the book. Progress!

Age 5.1.20

"Alles neu macht der Mai"

Lately J's been constantly humming and singing the German Volkslied "Alles neu macht der Mai," which he (and I) first learned in connection with Otfried Preußler's Der Räuber Hotzenplotz. Here he is singing it in his nonsense language:

Error correction 1

Yesterday J corrected my German grammar. I said "Gehen wir in den Zimmer." J said "Papa, du hast 'in den Zimmer' gesagt. Du solltest sagen 'in das Zimmer."  

He has occasionally corrected a gender assignment in the past, or pointed out if I absent-mindedly use a wrong word. But yesterday was the first real, full-fledged grammar error correction, I believe.

I told him by golly he was right, praised him, and told him that one day his German is going to be better than mine. Then I encouraged him to tell some animals and also his mother. 

My correction strategy is underwritten by the philosophy that I am not a language Authority, but rather a mediator and enabler of the language. I assign all my linguistic-authoritarian impulses to various puppets. most notably to Thusnelda, who is a resolute prescriptivist. But then I also undermine such impulses with other views, represented most notably by Friedel.  

Media today 33

Reading: Max Kruse, Urmel aus dem Eis, ch. 14. 

Viewing: Janoschs Traumstunde, episode 11 (c. 25 min.); Die Sendung mit der Maus, Sachgeschichten, how bike chains (6:18 min) and recorders (6:01 min) are made; Urmel (1990s German cartoon series), episodes 1 (23:11) and 2 (23:17). 

The Janosch is the episode with Schnuddelpferdchen, which J wanted to see after he named his own new horsie after this character. I purchased this show at Kinderkino.de, but it's also currently available free at YouTube in several uploads, at "Wolkenzimmerhaus."

Age 5.1.19

Animal pen pals 2

J is getting impatient with Gustav the rat, whom we have not heard from in some weeks. Today J and Friedel wrote him another short letter, rather peremptory in tone. 

Lieber Gustav, 

wo steckst Du die ganze Zeit? Bitte melde Dich!

-Jamie 

New animal friends

Last night J got a stuffed horse and a rubber snake in a gift exchange. 

In my essay I talk about how I use J's enthusiasm for each new animal for language-practice purposes. The first thing we did was come up with good names. We named the horsie "Schnuddelpferdchen" after the Janosch story:

With the snake, the first thing we did—all three of us—was some research in J's snake books about what kind of snake she was. We discovered she was a new species, a "Coral Milk King Snake" (eine Korallenmilch-Königsnatter) and that her name is Koralmi.

Another way new animal friends are fantastic is for encouraging reportage, about which I write a good bit in the essay (under "second phase activities). For example, this afternoon we went for a bike ride to some of our favorite spots around Athens and took Koralmi and Spiggy—another piggy—with. The animals ride in the bike bags near J's feet so that he can talk to them and show them things while riding. 

Here are some pictures showing J explaining to Koralmi and Spiggy about the old rail bridges and and mills down on the North Oconee River:

In such situations, if I start to explain something J knows about, he will actually tell me to be quiet so that he can explain it. I further encourage this by having one of the animals—in this case Spiggy— agree with J and tell me that he explains things better. 

Puppets and piano practice, part 2

Piano practice has been going generally very well ever since Friedel and Thusnelda took over. Each time, I try to think up new games and play strategies as a fun introduction to the lesson. 

One that we've been doing the last couple of times involves Friedel and Thusnelda having to get past J to the piano, whereby he beats them off with martial arts moves and the help of other animals. 

This worked extremely well today—at first. J actually requested *extra piano practice* so that he could play the game more times. But then something unfortunate happened. When one of the piggies finally did succeed in getting past the defense, J became quite angry. 

Now, according to my puppetry philosophy, which I explain in my essay, all the puppets have their own personalities and dignity. So J doesn't get to have it all his way all the time. This was one of those times. The piggies felt that they had gotten past J's defenses quite fairly, and that it is unfair of J to expect to win every time. However, right now this has only made J angrier, and he told us he never wants to play the game again, and at the moment I'm writing this he is off muttering to himself in another room—in German, by the way! 

So it's an end to piano practice today. But I'm hoping that in the bigger picture the piano practice, the puppetry, and J's social development in general is better served by enforcing these kinds of rules. 

Update: half an hour later J is calm. He explained to Friedel and Thusnelda that their move—one piggy catapulting the other over the Christmas tree—was not good because they could have knocked off and broken an ornament. They agreed and said they would not do that again. In turn, they asked him if it was ok if they won once in awhile without J getting angry. He agreed. 

Literary-critical Sunday school, part 6

Reading: The Beginner's Bible, p. 397-426.

Listening: Margot Käßmann, Die Bibel für Kinder, part 2, 21:41-28:15; Karlheinz Koinegg, Moses und die Wüste der Wunder, 0:00-18:41.  

When in the Käßmann audiobook we came to the parable of the sheep and the goats and Jesus said "When the end of the world comes ...", J called out "There is no end of the world!" 

I paused and asked him what he meant, and he said that maybe there would be an end of the world but that it would not come for a long long time, and then he said something about outer space that I can't recall (and that he is now unwilling to repeat). When I told him that many religious people believe the end of the world is coming very soon, he said "Ja, es gibt viele Plappermäuler"  ("Yes, there are a lot of blabbermouths"). 

I also told him that you can see billboards people have put up saying that the end of the world and/or Jesus is coming soon, and that I would show him the next time we drove to Atlanta.  

Billboard on Route 316 in Gwinnett County

Our basic approach to talking to J about things like the end of the world (and evolution) is the following. We told him what most of the scientists say and that we agree with the scientists. We also told him that some, but not all, religious people disagree with the scientists and think that the world will end soon. I pointed out that Jesus and his disciples thought that that the world was going to end soon, and that was 2000 years ago. I also told him that when I was a boy, some religious friends and family members told me that the world was going to end soon, and that was 30-40 years ago. That I myself believed this for awhile when I was young. 

We do not simply tell J that the scientists are right and that the religious people are wrong. We try to give him a dispassionate account of the positions, and also represent their complexity, for example that a religious person can agree with the science and that many good scientists believe in God. But we also leave him in no doubt about the fact that we agree with the scientists on scientific questions. 

The story of Moses is one of J's favorites and he has already experienced many versions of it. He especially likes the episodes with baby Moses in the basket, the burning bush, and the two scenes with the "snake staff" (Schlangenstab). He thinks some of the ten plagues are pretty interesting, but on the whole he doesn't really enjoy this part of the story. Concerning the last of the plagues (death of the first-born sons) he said last year: "Daddy, I don't think the scribes got this one right." 

In the past J has really enjoyed the German version of the movie The Ten Commandmants (2007), not least because here Moses has a donkey that gets a good bit of screen time. 

One of J's favorite scenes is where Moses, helping Zipporah at the well, tells the mean shepherds that they don't want to mix it up with him because he has nothing to lose and also because "my donkey is in a very bad mood today," and you see the glowering donkey shaking his mane and whinnying threateningly (min. 19:00).

I also made a point of telling J that even though you don't hear a lot about Moses's sister Miriam in the bible, she's really a very important person because she thought up the whole plan with the basket and Pharaoh's daughter. 

That if it were not for her, Moses would not have survived. That she has a story of her own and that it's a shame the writers of the bible didn't tell us more about her.

Age 5.1.18

Media today 32

Listening: Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 3:13-3:41 (end); Grimms, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, KHM 5, "Der Wolf und die sieben jungen Geißlein" (7:41 min.); Albert E. erklärt unsere Sonne, 11:30-21:50.

Viewing: Die Sendung mit der Maus, "Sonnenfinsternis" (8:29); Live reportage from the 1999 eclipse in Germany (9:54); "Erde und Mond: Ein Doppelspiel im All" (10:34)

I must say, "Pupsräuber" as BFG-speak for "Hubschrauber" (English: "bellypoppers" < "helicopters") is pretty good and hits J right in his scatalogical sweet spot.

We've read, listened to, and seen the Grimm tale many times already. By now J finds it kind of boring. 

Age 5.1.19

Media today 31

Reading: David Macaulay, Das große Mammut-Buch der Technik, p. 32-33 (water wheels and turbines); Roger Hargreaves, Mister Weihnachten and Miss Weihnachten. 

I read about water wheels and turbines to J and the piggies while J was taking a bath and playing with this toy:

J really liked these Hargreaves stories because, besides being Christmas-themed, they each featured numerous characters from the other books doing their typical schticks. When Mister Wirrkopf accidentally labeled his gifts with "Happy Easter," J laughed so hard he just about fell off the bed.

Listening: Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 2:53-3:13. 

This section had a funny sentence from the BFG J wanted to hear several times: "Was ist denn das für ein Wickel-Wackel-Klipper-Klapper-Stuhl? Ich sitze wie ein Floh auf dem Klo im Büro hier oben!"

Age 5.1.17

Puppetry today 5: Die blaue Blume

Yesterday Friedel and Thusnelda told J about the "Blue Flower" and asked him to draw them one. Since then he has drawn several and insisted each time that the piggies be shown.

They explained it to him something like this: "There are lots of blue flowers, but it's said there is one Blue Flower that's the most beautiful, and lots of people have searched for it, mostly in Germany, but none has ever found it. Some people think that it's just a symbol or sign for what is so beautiful that maybe it doesn't really exist." Wherupon the piggies got into an argument about whether this Blue Flower really does exist. Friedel insisted it did, Thusnelda said didn't think so and that he was a dreamer.   

Vocabulary 1

This is the first in a series of posts on the kinds of German vocabulary training I have done with my son over the three years since we began German.

The first things I concentrated on were word gender, irregular plural forms, and dimunuitive forms, all more or less simultaneously. The main forum for this was our game-routines during the first phase. In our endlessly repeated fetching games, for example, one somewhat later than the one cited in the essay will have gone much like this:

A: Jamie, wen holen wir jetzt?
J: Ein [sic] Katze!
A: Eine [sic] Katze? Möchtest du eine große Katze oder ein kleines Kätzchen haben? 
J: Eine große Katze.
A. Friedel, weißt du, wo die Katzen sind? Jamie will eine. 
F: Die Katzen sind in Js Zimmer. 
A: Kannst du ein kleines Kätzchen holen?
F: Aber er hat gesagt, er wollte eine große Katze.
A: Nein, ein kleines Kätzchen, hat er gesagt.
F: Eine große Katze, Herr Sager!
A: Nein! Ein Kätzchen, ein kleines Kätzchen!
F: Katze!
A: Kätzchen!
F: Fragen Sie ihn doch!
A: J, wolltest du ein Kätzchen, oder eine große Katze?
J: Eine große Katze. 

All gender-ending mistakes J made could effectively be handled by simply repeating the correct form as if it is what he said in the first place, followed by a question obligating a restatement from him, which was then virtually always correct. 

I first introduced the dimunuitive form in combination with the adjective klein, then later dropped the adjective. 

The arguments between me and Friedel over what J wanted were a very—perhaps the most—important part of the interaction. They were a performative way of highlighting semantic differences, they involved a lot of repetition, they solicited restatements and reformulations from J, all under the cover of great entertainment for him. 

One of the reasons J has so many puppets and stuffed animals—and often several of each kind of animal, big and small—is so that we always have characters on hand for work on plurals and diminuitives. I made sure to cover all the vowel changes (and non-changes!). Of the umlaut-able animals we have the following, plus non-umlauting contrasts: 

die Gans, die Gänse
der Hahn, die Hähne
das Schaf, die Schafe
der Hase, die Hasen
die Maus, die Mäuse
der Pfau, die Pfauen  
die Raupe, die Raupen
der Frosch, die Frösche
der Vogel, die Vögel
der Ochse, die Ochsen
der Fuchs, die Füchse
das Huhn, die Hühner
die Kuh, die Kühe
der Hund, die Hunde

Another reason J knows and loves the Bremen musicians so much is because the story features animals representing all three genders and several of the most common plural-formation patterns. So I encouraged game-routines based on it. 

der Esel, die Esel
der Hund, die Hunde
die Katze, die Katzen
die Maus, die Mäuse
der Hahn, die Hähne

With the diminuitive forms, I switch around between the standard ones (-chen, -lein) and the Swabian and Allemannic forms (-le, -ele; -li, -eli):

Vögelchen, Vög(e)lein, Vögele, Vögeli
Schlängchen, Schläng(e)lein, Schlängele, Schlängeli

Media today 30

Reading: Roger Hargreaves, Miss Tipptopp. 

This was a new one for us. J pointed out that Miss Tipptopp is a lot like Mister Pingelig and that Mister Wirrkopf, who plays a supporting role, is a lot like Mister Umgekehrt.

Viewing: Let's Play Kung Fu Panda [Deutsch], episodes 3 (24 min.) and 4 (22 min.)

Age 5.1.16

Puppetry today 4: Piggies in jail

Today J did one of what in the article I call his "trickster" scenarios, where he plays one group of animal friends off against another. He talked Friedel and Thusnelda into attempting to put the doggies into prison. But it was all a plot worked out with the doggies ahead of time, and the piggies were the ones who ended up in the klink. 

Note the big wooden play bolts screwed into the sides of the laundry basket; those piggies were not getting out! In fact, they stayed there all morning while J was at school. He talked about it all the way there with me and the doggies (who rode in the bike bags), and all the way back after I picked him up. 

One of the vocabulary lessons involved ways of saying that somebody deserves something. I had J tell the piggies:

Das habt ihr nun davon.
Das geschieht euch recht.
Das habt ihr reichlich verdient.
Das habt ihr euch selbst eingebrockt.

And the famous phrase from the Luther bible:

Wer anderen [Menschen] eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein. (Proverbs 26-27).

Thusnelda was not particularly edified. 

Media today 29

Max Kruse, Urmel aus dem Eis, ch. 11-13. Roger Hargreaves, Miss Unentschieden. 

Viewing: Sendung mit der Maus, Sachgeschichten: Papierschiff, Papst, Porzellanteller, Phänomenta Mondgleiter (29:31); Silvesterfeuerwerk (7:12); Feuerwerksrakete (7:57)

Age 5.1.15

Media today 28

Roger Hargreaves, Mister Kitzel. 

This is one in a large series by Hargreaves called the "Mr. Men and Little Miss" books. They are originally in English (Mr. Kitzel = Mr. Tickle), but most have been translated into German. Each book features a character who is a personification of some trait of the personality or character or body, and the stories involve the silly messes they get into while embodying the trait. 

We discovered these stories over the summer and have read about half of them. J finds them totally hilarious, and they are very fun to read. For L2 purposes they are brilliant; learning words and concepts is fun when each has a personality and a story, and they really stick in the mind. After we read Mr. Umgekehrt (Mr. Opposite), for example,

who of course does everything opposite or backwards, J loved to play a game where we imitate his "opposite speech" patterns.  

J: "Nacht gute, Papa!"
A: "Nacht Jamie gute!"

A: "Morgen guten!"
J: "Morgen Papa guten!"

A: "Hunger Kleiner du hast?"
J: "keinen ich Hunger habe, nein."

Sometimes they took a bit of work to get wrong in the right way. 

Some of the stories are also useful parenting tools. After we read stories like Miss Sturkopf (Little Miss Stubborn), Mr. Pingelig (Mr. Fussy) and Mr. Unverschämt (Mr. Rude), we could have discussions about avoiding those behaviors without J becoming upset. I simply would say something like: "Now, I think you're acting a little bit like Little Miss Stubborn here." J could better accept the criticism when it came associated with some laughs.  

Age 5.1.14

Literary-critical Sunday school, part 5

Reading: The Beginner's Bible, 370-396. 

Listening: Margot Käßmann, Die Bibel für Kinder, 17:30-21:41; Grimm brothers, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, Nr. 4, "Märchen von einem der auszog, um das fürchten zu lernen" (23 min.); Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 2:24-2:53.

I asked J this morning if he wanted to read or listen to the story of Cain and Abel. He said no and became very upset, so we didn't. I'm not sure why he reacted so strongly. I asked him if he's heard the story at school (he goes to an Episcopal day school with weekly religious lessons) or at church with his grandmother. He said no, that he's just read the story the one time with me (over a year ago now). I remember we read (more like quickly scanned) the version in Annemarie Benedikt, Die Kinderbibel. It has a pretty gripping picture of the fratricide that may be the main case of the negative impression:

The reason Cain's offering is rejected by God is not easy to explain to a child. Famously, the bible itself says nothing about a difference in the brothers' motives: In the course of time Cain brought to the lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions (Genesis 4: 3-4). Both Benedikt and our other German children's bible, by Eckart zur Neiden, rationalize God's rejection of Cain's offering by the traditional move of imputing selfish motives to the latter, which God perceives. Käßmann has an interesting way of dealing with this: her Cain has the impression that God favors Abel's over his offering, and becomes jealous. 

The famous Golden Children's Bible, which was my only bible as a child, imputes just the barest hint of greater thankfulness to Abel: One day it came to pass that Cain brought some of his harvest as an offering to the lord, while Abel brought the fattest and choicest of his lambs. I remember very clearly reading that passage and really struggling to understand why exactly God rejected Cain here, and I think that interpretive challenge was and is a good thing. The psychologizing takes an easy way out, and does some injustice to the complexity of Cain as a figure. 

When I asked J what he thought of Jesus's parables about the good Samaritan and the good shepherd, he said: "Daddy, do you know what I noticed? The animals are all smiling in the book!" Lo and behold:

When I asked him what he thought about it he said it was probably right in the case of the sheep, since he was lost and now found, but he wasn't sure about the donkey, since donkeys have to carry a lot of weight and sometimes their owners don't treat them very well, like the miller in the Musicians of Bremen. 

J really enjoyed the Grimm tale "Märchen von einem der auszog, um das fürchten zu lernen" (English description here) this—our second—time. He himself has been having a lot of bad dreams, so the idea of an absolutely fearless boy who cheerfully disposes of horrifying creatures and situations is very appealing to him. He also enjoys the "stupid boy" topos, being himself in a phase where he's calling everything stupid. 

I took the opportunity of working on the important idiom jemanden für etwas halten = "to consider somebody to be something." I said: Die Leute halten den Jungen für dumm, aber er ist es nicht, er ist nur ganz jung und unerfahren und vielleicht ein bisschen einfältig. ("People think the boy is stupid, but he isn't; he's just young and inexperienced and maybe a little simple-minded"). 

J's favorite episode today was in the cursed castle when the "half a man" comes tumbling down the chimney, followed by the other half. When I asked whether it was the upper half and the lower, or the left half and the right, J said that it could also be the front half and the back (die vorne [sic] Hälfte und die hintere), which I thought was quite clever. 

Age 5.1.12

Puppetry today 3

Today we did a lot of Kung Fu Fighting with the puppets, all of whom have their own style. Here are some action shots of the last confrontation, the piggies vs. a Bunny Master: 

I learned that Piggie Style Kung Fu is just not very effective. In addition to practicing lexical clusters around words like angreifen, besiegen, verteidigen, and schützen, Friedel and Thusnelda said the equivalent of "It's no use!" in as many ways I could think of.

Es ist vergeblich, vergebens. 
Es nützt nichts.
Es hat keinen Zweck.
Wir geben uns geschlagen.
Wir haben hier nichts verloren.
Wir sind dem Kaninchen / den Mäusen / den Schlangen nicht gewachsen. 

Media today 27

Max Kruse, Urmel aus dem Eis, ch. 9-10. Also, this arrived in the mail today:

Which is the German translation of 

The texts are still somewhat beyond his level in both languages, but he can understand some of it, and he loves looking at the pictures and diagrams. For me it's great to have German technical explanations and vocabulary all in one place instead of having to look everything up on Wikipedia—though Wikipedia is still great.

This evening we read about inclined planes (pp. 10-11) as well as can openers and scissors (pp. 14-15). 

Viewing: Let's play Kung Fu Panda (Deutsch), episode 3. J loves this episode most of all because it shows the Furious Five each doing their characteristic training regimens. Today he announced that Viper is his favorite "because she trains in the fire chamber." 

Age 5.1.11

Media today 26

Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 2:34-2:42

There were a lot of the giant's funny solecisms in this section. 

durcheinanderlich < durcheinander
keine Wange < keine Bange
Donnerschmetterling < Donnerwetter

Throughout this Hörbuch I've been drawing attention to these by saying things like "Did you notice how the BFG says __________ instead of _________? Ha ha!" and "Ha ha ha! The BFG should have said ____________ but instead he said ______________." 

In addition to increasing general language awareness in a very fun way, this affords a lot of good practice with instead-constructions (statt, anstatt, stattdessen) and the past subjunctive (hätte sagen sollen / müssen / wollen). 

Age 5.1.10

Media today 25

Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, 2:02-2:34.  

Age 5.1.9

Do NOT Read This Post! Overinterpreting the Grimms' "Marienkind"

Today my son and I listened to the Grimm brothers fairy tale "Marienkind" (Kinder- und Hausmärchen, no. 3, 13 min.).* 

This is a very strange and disturbing story (par for the course with the Grimms, I suppose) that in some ways represents old-world Catholicism at its darkest: obey unquestioningly, or be not merely expelled from paradise, but burned at the stake! At the same time, the ending is a powerful statement on the total efficacy of the human will in accessing divine saving grace. It's popular Pelagianism. Though of course, the human excercises the will only in the face of the direst threat of violence, which scenario snatches back with the right hand the freedom extended with the left.

Whenever Mary asked the girl if she wants to admit opening the forbidden door, my son called out "Flunkerei!" ("That's a fib!"). Personally, I found there was something almost heroic in the little girl's resoluteness and told J so. Besides, much like with the forbidden fruit, there's the question of why Mary flaunted the door's forbiddenness if she didn't want it opened. 

There is a brilliant scene in Otfried Preußler's Räuber Hotzenplotz that can be read as a parodie of the forbidden door in "Marienkind." Kasperl, trapped in the castle of the evil magician Petrosilius Zwackelmann, finds a door with a sign on it saying "Admittance Strictly Forbidden!"

He goes through, only to find a second door with a sign saying "Very Strictly Forbidden!" 

and then a third door saying "Absolutely Forbidden!"

It's one of J's favorite scenes; we've read and heard it dozens of times. 

One of many things I love about Preußler is the way he subverts traditional fairy-tale motifs, often in a way that represents the empowerment of young subjects vis-a-vis some kind of authoritarianism. The parade example of this is Die kleine Hexe.   

Of course, all this freethinking education is probably going to come back to haunt my wife & me in about ten years—if not sooner!

J asked why the girl (das Mädchen) is always referred to as ihm (dative case), so he's really starting to hear the antiquatedness of the language.  

Age 5.1.7

*We skipped over no. 2 "Katz und Maus in Gesellschaft" at J's request. He has no problem with people being burned at the stake, but can't handle a cat eating a mouse!