March 29, 2020: Theo, the Globe Game, Emus -

Theo got into emus for a while. It occurred to me that it was a nice, short word, "emu."

So one week, instead of the card, I just had a sheet with all these different snips of giant, looming emu faces, and a sentence next to each one:

HI, THEO. (giant photo of an emu face)

I AM AN EMU. (different face)

ME TOO. (etc)

HOW ARE YOU, THEO???? (several faces)

WE NEED TO KNOW!! (etc.)

He laughed and laughed over that one.

Also, one week he wanted to know where someplace was. There was a huge globe in the library, on a stand, several feet high. I went over and showed him.

Then I thought, Oh, I know! So I would spin the globe and put my finger on some place with a short name in big letters, and he would stare at it and eventually work out "CHINA."

And then he would spin it and crouch down on the underside and put his finger on something small with a lot of letters, and say, What's THIS, and I'd make a fuss about having to squat down and peer under there, but I'd do it, and eventually, I'd say, TIERRA DEL FUEGO.

Well, trouble was, we didn't keep it down like intelligent people should have, and our little game looked like a LOT more fun than the Lego books, so the other kids ran over and crowded around and some just wanted to spin the globe for all it was worth, and it was a massive outbreak of Celia Wagner, Bad Influence, which is a thing that recurs from time to time in my life, a virus that cannot be entirely eradicated.

We SMART readers tried to get everybody to line up, and to allow one spin per kid, and so forth, but I think the globe had to go on vacation for a bit. Sigh. It was really fun, though.