a few weeks ago, we bought a world map for jan. if you ask him where he was born, he’ll say “deutschland!”, at the same time pointing to that area in europe where the berlin wall, goethe, and a mug of beer are illustrated. now, next question: where was mama born?

jan: “there! there, where the monkey is, that’s where you’re born!”

not funny. why did they have to have the tarsier there?

strike one!

one afternoon, we were coming home from the kinderkrippe and jan was whining after some ice cream. since it was becoming a habit to drop by the ice cream man before going home, i decided to be firm this particular day and say no. of course, he wouldn’t take a normal “no!”, so i had to make up a story of not having money with me and that we first have to go up the apartment to get some.

“aber, mama, dort is ein geld automat. da kannst du geld abholen. es geht nicht einfacher!”
“but mama, there is an ATM machine. there you can get some money. it doesn’t get any simpler (than that)!”

strike two!

i was at the kitchen washing up; jan was in his room, painting. on paper, i thought. wrong. jsut a few minutes later, he was triumphantly showing me his artwork on the wall. i shut my eyes, swallowed and went to fetch a sponge. calmly, i told him, “jan, i told you to paint only on paper. look, the color doesn’t completely get off the wall anymore.”

equally patient, as if talking to an intellectually-incapacitated, jan replied,

” aber mama, wie soll ich das wissen?”
“but mama, how was i supposed to know that?”

strike three! am out of the game!!!

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