Wrong Impression

Some Americans have moved into the apartment downstairs and I'm a little worried they might get the wrong idea about us.

Little things. Like when I was chasing the boys around the house Saturday afternoon. Literally. With a whiffle ball bat. While they screeched happily and danced naked just out of my reach. "Monster coming. Monster coming."

(I wouldn't want to live in the apartment below us, but so far, in six years, noone's ever complained!)

"I am not a monster. I'm your mother." Swat with the bat at a naked behind.

Come to think of it, we'd better start saving up for some serious couch time in the fuure.

The other thing that worries me is the song I wrote and taught them.

"I love to beat my children. I beat them every day. And when I beat my children, oh this is what they say."

Rousing chorus from the kids: "Beat me Momma, beat me Momma, beat me Momma, please."

It's a really catchy tune, actually. (You can also tickle the children, hug the children and kiss the children.....but they like the beating the best!)

At the end of the day we sat down to read the poems of Heinrich Hoffmann, a popular German children's book from the mid 1800s. In it, the girl playing with matches gets burned - to death. The boy who won't eat his soup starves - to death. The kid who sucks his thumb gets to live though - after the tailor cuts off both his thumbs.

Go on. It's a lovely collection of children's tales. The boys LOVE it.

I'm just banking on the fact that our new neighbors couldn't understand a word of it!