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| "The Mock Turtle's Story" from Alice in Wonderland Sir John Tenniel - 1865 1890 Nursery Version |
That's right! KosherCook has a temporary position with a Jewish non-profit planning an event in November. He's off at a planning meeting tonight, so I had a whole evening alone with KosherCop, who was in rare form. He has been getting more and more sophisticatedly hilarious since starting Kindergarten and tonight was no different.
KosherCop has become quite the artist - he even carries a sketchbook to school to draw during recess. He mostly draws comics in teeny, tiny boxes. His main themes of choice include Stinky Foot Guy - a disembodied foot with eyes and squiggly lines emanating from the toes (indicating stinkyness) that goes on terrorizing rampages; "Planet Martha" which as far as I can tell is a dog in space (loosely based on PBS' Martha cartoon) that fights evil cats, eats the "happy hot dogs" (think weenies with eyes, smiles and feet) and often involve tales of a giant celestial laundry basket that answers the question of where all our missing socks have gone. The rogue socks then become an army of evil sock puppets.
After dinner this evening he shared his most recent comics with me. The stories were the same as above but he apparently has branched out and began a collaboration with a first-grader who can write and spell (although KosherCop was the first to admit that his partner's spelling was "a little backwards"). It's really an interesting partnership since KosherCop works in pen and his friend uses pencil. In some cases it looked like KosherCop inked over the pencil too, which is especially interesting since this is how real comic books are done (or so I hear from KosherCook, our resident comic book aficionado).
After he finished telling me about his artwork, I told him it was time for his shower. In true Kosher Whine fashion, he replied with the hyperbolic statement, "What, so you want to put me in a concentration camp?"
Oookaay...I guess we learned about the Holocaust in school for Yom HaShoah. I ignored his inflammatory remark and started asking him what he had learned. He then launched into an extremely convoluted history of WWII, most of which seemed to have come from his classmates - a dubious source at best. He couldn't adequately explain it to me, and kept prefacing bits of it with "this probably isn't true, but", so he decided to draw it for me.
He began with Hitler in the middle of the page wearing a crown, because he was the "guy in charge". Then came a blob with a P for Poland that he crossed out and changed to EU for Europe, despite my trying to explain that if anything it would have a G for Germany. I was told not to interrupt - he knew it wasn't going to be accurate but had no intention of taking my corrections.
Then he drew a ship which was refused at each port and drew a diagram showing the Jews' "limits" and Hitler's "limits." I asked him what he meant by limits, and he said, "The limits of their luck." Okay - good answer. The Jews' limits did indeed seem rather small compared to Hitler's.
In the end it was surpisingly accurate and culminated in Hitler shooting himself in the head. Maybe too accurate.
Eventually the history lesson was over and KosherCop was ready to take a shower.
Showertime is usually the time of day I'm most likely to get a story or information about his day. Tonight he was explaining the game he played with his friends where they were all superheroes. I liked this idea and asked what my superpower would be. I kept making suggestions and he rejected every one. Apparently, all superpowers involving air, fire, ice, and water were taken. KosherCop's was shooting lightening out of his eyes and/or hands. I couldn't choose flying, superhuman strength or the ability to talk to animals because all superheroes come standard with those features. After being shot down over and over again I let out a big sigh.
After hearing this, KosherCop remarked, "I can tell you are crestfallen." I am crestfallen, I say, but now I'm laughing. "Nice use of the word crestfallen!" I tell him. "Thank you, Mommy."
Eventually we decide we will let art imitate life and I can have a superhuman sense of smell (as well as my other senses) so I can detect dairy products that have gone bad from great distances. Tada!
Finally, it was time for our bedtime story. We have been reading "Alice in Wonderland" - not one of my favorites, but KosherCop is really enjoying the bizarreness and nonsense. We were reading about the Mock Turtle and his song about soup and the lobster quadrille dance.
When we finished, KosherCop was completely confused. I let some of my dislike of the book seep out and said, "I know - it's a crazy story. I don't know why the author wrote it."
And KosherCop very calmly told me, "Because somebody wanted to express what was in his imagination!"
Oy, do I love this kid!
