R2D2

My mom got my Dad R2D2 for his birthday. We took the kids to see Aunt Ruth and Uncle Rolf which left my Dad plenty of time to train the druid. This is a man who has written international tax policy and just informed us at dinner that he met the chics in Charlie Wilson’s office when he worked on the hill. It’s good that he worked in tax law and not technology. So far R2 dances and answers in beep beep talk when you ask it if it remembers C3P0. The kids meanwhile continue to shout a variety of commands at it usually in chorus—Jonathan reads something from the directions and Eli repeats it louder and slower. Rebecca talks to it in the teenage voice she uses when she’s most frustrated with me—the one that comes with an eye roll and very slow speech. The robot will likely have a psychotic break before we leave. Maybe Amazon has robot Prozac.

The kids who have been relatively charming by their standards for most of the trip became wretched at Aunt Ruth’s house. The backpack with diapers and toys was left at home. Of the 500 books in the apartment not a single one was satisfying in any way to Jonathan. He was smack in the middle of “Great men of Greece” and nothing else would do. Finally at the end of the visit the gemelli discovered the encyclopedia and looked up China. This kept them busy for a while and we now know all about Buddha. They also looked up butt and found nothing—very disappointing. Apropos of butts Eli’s was positively disgusting since we had no diapers.

The missing backpack liked a good teachable moment in collective responsibility. The general sentiment when something is left behind involves “Mommy forgot. For example as we left cville on Thursday I told Frick and Frack to put their jackets in the car. Nothing happened. We arrived in Alexandria and I heard “Mommy forgot our jackets; Bonnie forgot the kids jackets…..” I’m thinking this sort of collective responsibility can be used to plan my courses. Music 101 needs a tune up and the kids are now big Fantasia fans so they can take care of that. The Jefferson and Music Class needs everything and all three kids think he’s still alive and a good friend so they can use their ouiga board to handle that one.