fhe fail

The other day Abe came over to play and I found him admiring some coloring E had done. The day before E and I had held our decidedly, sub-par, weekly family night. Our lessons generally bounce back and forth between sharing and personal space. Last week, I branched out and we talked about the prophet. After which, I printed a picture of the President Monson for her to color. From the hair to the nose it looks remarkably accurate, at which point she took some artistic liberty and added purple chin and multi-colored moustache.

Anyways, after watching Abe admire the picture, I was feeling quite proud of myself and asked him, "Would you like to color a picture of the Prophet also."

The enthusiasm with which he responded should have tipped me off.

Still feeling decidedly smug about my great FHE lesson and clearly effective parenting skills, I printed a two copies, one for each of them. After a while I overheard them talking about monsters, I listened more carefully,

Elie, "Mine is a scary monster with pink eyes that came into my bedroom and scared me."
Abe, "My monster is even scarier. When I sleep, he tickles my back and eats me."
Elie, "Me can fight monsters all by myself 'cause me brave."
Abe, "If I see a monster I kill it by myself."

When you color it like that, I guess it does look like a monster. I didn't display this one.

we're the type of parents

 Who would probably be arrested if we didn't live in a developing country.

 Before leaving Koh Chang,we hit up the local Snake Farm. Where we learned the island is infested with all kinds of highly poisonous snakes (not the one pictured, that's just your average, friendly python).

All the snakes they had were found on the island, and most were found in people's homes. I'm definitely calling off the family trek through the jungle to the dinosaur foot print, after learning about the snake whose venom will kill you in twenty minutes.

 The daughter of the owner slept with this snake every night.  Elie was not so game, she's nobody's fool. She's read Eric Carle's The Very Greedy Python--she knows how this story goes.

This picture pretty much sums up the experience for everyone.

In our defense we passed on a much sketchier looking Monkey School. We only drove past the entrance, but I'm pretty sure the monkeys took over that place--it's possible Koh Chang Monkey School is the start of Planet of the Apes becoming reality.