Phineas, Ferb, and Homer

If you are looking for a "three cartoon characters walk into a bar..." joke, look further! (And don't bother googling it, I already tried)

My daughter is a avid fan of the Disney television show Phineas and Ferb. In the show, the two titular boys spend their summer vacation building fantastic contraptions and otherwise having fabulous adventures. In the episode Troy Story, their older sister Candace is struggling through that classic of Greek literature, The Iliad. To help their sister out, Phineas and Ferb decide to reenact the Trojan War in their back yard, following the plot of the epic poem. They build the walls of Troy and put their own spin on events from the book.

Recruiting for the Greek army

While watching the episode on a tablet in our front room, my daughter asked if The Iliad is a real book. Having read it in college low those many years ago, I went over to our bookshelf and pulled it down to show her. She was amazed and wanted to read it right away. I said we should wait for bed time. Candace had a hard time staying awake while reading it, so what better bed time reading could there be?

We don't have the colorful cover anymore

That night, we started with Book One of The Iliad. My daughter's first question was why the sections were called "books" and not "chapters." I answered that it was the style back then which didn't really satisfy her. I wish I had taken a cue from Calvin's dad and told her that chapters hadn't been invented yet, so they could only divide books into smaller books.

Then we got into the story. The first thing that happens is the priest Khryses comes to the Greeks to ransom his captive daughter from Agamemnon, the main Greek general. The soldiers all agree with the priest but Agamemnon doesn't want to give up his plunder and sends the priest off without returning his daughter. My daughter's next question was why the priest had a daughter. Being Catholic, our priests are celibate (not counting some rare exceptions). My answer was that ancient priests were allowed to be married. Greek and other Eastern priests still are allowed to marry today. She was satisfied with this.

Happily, my daughter did not ask about Agamemnon's intentions with the girl, which are pretty clear from line 34:

Give up the girl? I swear she will grow old
at home in Argos, far from her country
working my loom and visiting my bed.

I was fully prepared to give my daughter the "she'll be a domestic servant, making his bed, etc." routine but didn't have to resort to that.

The priest naturally called on the god Apollo to intervene. Apollo saddled up and started shooting arrows (I explained he was an archer god) causing a plague for the Greeks and their animals.

She started reading the poem by herself and got confused around line 99:

The diviner then took heart and said:
                                                                    "No failure
in hekatombs or vows is held against us.
It is the man of prayer who Agamemnon
treated with contempt...

My daughter missed the "No failure" part and was confused why they started a new sentence without a capital letter. Also, the sentence didn't make sense to her. I explained that the poetic style was to finish out a line's length before starting a new line. I almost got into dactylic hexameter, but I didn't want that getting confused with hekatombs and vows. Progress was slow enough.

She then asked when the war was going to start. I said it already started before the book began and the Greeks were camping out, besieging the city of Troy. We talked about whether the war was real (yes), the Greek gods were real (no), Helen was real (maybe), the soldiers like Agamemnon and Akhilles were real (probably, but not with the magic skin). etc.

After one evening's reading, my wife checked our local library and found a kid-friendly illustrated version of The Iliad, which my daughter is now reading by herself. She's had no further questions so far.

Queen of the Stall

Lucy has been working on many skills lately, mostly trying to improve her parents' patience. Her main tool in this endeavor is stalling. She can stretch out many activities to two or three times their normal length.

Her bedtime routine has been undergoing some revisions, all motivated by her. At first, she added taking a book to bed, which we parents think is really awesome, because we love reading and we want to foster that in our kids. She can't read yet, so it isn't really a problem that she takes a book to bed at night when the lights are out and it's mostly dark in her room. She still happily flips through the pages and chatters to herself as if she is reading.

The challenge is her selection process. At first she would grab anything on her shelf that looked good. Now, however, she will spend a good deal of time trying to choose. If we start counting to ten, she will say,  "No counting! NO COUNTING!" She has also added an element of "I've made the wrong choice, please let me choose again." She'll be in the crib with her book and then decide she wants a different one. So far I have been caving on letting her get a new one, but it's the whole process all over again. Ugh!

Her other tactic is to throw her pacifier out of the crib and then cry out that she doesn't have her pacifier. So far she only does this once per bedtime (and not at every bedtime). As she approaches her second birthday, I suppose it's time to break her of the pacifier habit. That will definitely solve the problem.

Lucy also tries some tricks at meals or snack times. She will eat one or two bites of what we give her and then ask for something else. Usually her go-to options are yogurt or dried cherries. The coup de grace was at one snack time where I started off by offering her what Jacob was eating, namely graham crackers. She said no in her sweet little voice. The conversation continued like this:

Who can say no to such a face?

Daddy: Do you want cheesy crackers instead?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Do you want Cheerios?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Do you want peanut butter crackers?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Do you want animal crackers?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Do you want cheese?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Do you want bread?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Do you want yogurt?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Do you want cherries?
Lucy: No.
Daddy: Lucy, what do you want?
Lucy: Gra'm crack.
Daddy: But I offered that to you first and you said no. Are you sure?
Lucy, as sweetly as possible: I change mind.

Lucy has also developed some interest in potty training. She's been watching Jacob and wanting to try it out. At first she wanted to stand and pee like her big brother. That wouldn't work, so we convinced her to sit on the little potty. Now she wants to sit on the potty without clothes or diaper. And sit. And sit. And sit.

She'll read a book (ever notice there's two types of people in the world, those who read on the toilet and those who don't? I'm in the "don't" camp and really don't understand the "do" camp). At the Supermarkethas been her favorite, or at least the first four or five pages. By page five, she goes back to the beginning and starts again. Or she'll find another book. When she's finally done, she leaves the bathroom and doesn't want to get her diaper on or her pants. Asking why she doesn't want these, she typically responds, "I want to go potty!" And it starts again.

I know we're supposed to encourage interest in using the potty. So I don't want to discourage her. But waiting around for her to be done (especially when nothing is happening) is tough on the patience. I just need to offer it up for the poor souls in Purgatory. I'm sure they're happy about Lucy being queen of the stall.