Carnival time in Belgium

 


Yesterday Mendel went to ballet dressed up for Carnival, and after that we went to a carnival party at the boarding school that belongs to the school that the kids go to.

Elias wanted to be a clown, staying in character after telling jokes at the talent show two weeks ago.



Mendel wanted to be a princess, but since 90% of the girls are princesses, I convinced her to be "Pipi Langkous" instead. Pipi langkous is a girl from a Swedish movie that was very popular when I was young. While in the States we used to play these movies as well, so she knows her.
Everywhere she went, she got recognized as Pipi Langkous (especially by the moms), so in the end she was very happy with her costume.
(Picture of the "real" Pipi Langkous on the right)

We (the moms) decided it would be fun to dress up as well, all the same, and we ended up wearing bright colored overalls. As if that wasn't enough, some of us used some face painting.

The top picture is the end result.

Elias the stand up comedian

Once a year, the school organizes some kind of talent show.

Every child can sign up to perform "something".
This something is most often a dance performance, singing a song, playing an instrument like the guitar or the piano, and sometimes telling jokes.

Since I am going to organize this event next year, and because I would like Elias to get some experience on stage (he will benefit from it later in his career - whatever that might be), I coaxed him into signing up for this.

This wasn't easy since he feels very strongly about not making a fool of himself in front of all his friends.

But I convinced him that telling a few jokes would be fun. He expressed his biggest concern:"What if they laugh with me?". Since this is the exact purpose of telling a joke, he went for it.

Here are his jokes (remember - these are second grade jokes):

1) What is green and skies?
..... a skiwi

2) Why does a rabbit go to bed so early?
...... because it only needs to bush two teeth

3) What is the difference between a teacher and a dentist?
....... a teacher says "close your mouth" and the dentist says "open your mouth"

4) Jantje goes walking with his granny. He finds a lolly on the ground but granny says:"Everything on the ground is dirty.". They walk on and Jantje sees one Euro on the ground, and again granny says:"Everything on the ground is dirty." They walk further and granny falls on the ground. She asks Jantje to help her get up but Jantje says:"I can't. Everything on the ground is dirty."


Since we practiced for an entire week on pronunciation and speed of the jokes, he brought it like a professional. While waiting to tell the answer to one of the first three jokes, he would count to 3 (and you could see his head bob a little on the counts). Then he answered in such a tone that the entire audience just broke out in laughter. It was awesome!

New lover?

An old college buddy of mine (Patrick) came over to our house to pick me up so we could have a few drinks together. While Patrick, Wim and I are talking in the kitchen prior to leaving, my dear son asks me: "mama - are you a bit in love with Patrick?".

Hahaha... I couldn't stop laughing and asked him why he would ask such a silly question, he responded:" Well, you are going on a date with him .....".

How innocent little kids are, to ask me so frankly in front of Wim!

Btw... my answer was "no" :-)

It's flu season

Why is it that when one kid recovers from a flu (and had to stay home from school for a week), that the other kids gets the same symptoms?
Can't they compare calendar's and schedule it at the same time?