Lesson learned...

My voice is hoarse and rough today and I'm feeling sort of icky (due to the changing weather and seasonal allergies) , so in a raspy, scratchy voice just slightly above a whisper, I asked Clementine to ask her dad to RSVP by phone to a birthday party she had been invited to. He was downstairs, I was upstairs, and I thought it would be quicker and easier to ask her to ask him.

antique French Poster

It wasn't.

Me: I need you to ask Daddy to make a phone call. Say, 'RSVP to this party, please.'

Clementine (trying to sound it out in her head): Why? What does it spell?

Me: It's an acronym (we've covered acronyms before).  It stands for répondez s'il vous plaît. It means, 'please respond' in French (said in my in best I-took-Spanish-not-French-accent). It's asking the person who gets it to answer 'yes' or 'no' so that the sender will know whether or not the person who got the invitation is coming to an event or not. It's on most invitations and we always try to make sure we do it, because it's a sign of good manners. It's a big girl thing.

Clementine: Okay...

 cover of vintage book of manners

Me: So, say to Daddy, 'RSVP, please'.

Clementine: RVSP, please

Me: No. 'R-S-V-P'
Clementine: R-S-S-P, please
Me: No, 'R---S---V---P'. Please
Clementine: R-V-P-P, please
Me: No, 'R----S----V-----P'
Clementine: R-S-V-P
Me: Yes, perfect. Thank you.

 antique French poster

Clementine smiles and skips off. I spend the next minute or so patting myself on the back, proud, because I've taught her what RSVP means, and that it's polite to respond when we get one. Manners and French in one fell swoop? How awesome is that?

 cover of vintage book of manners

A few moments later...

Clementine: DADDY, PLEASE R-S-V-P TO THIS PARTY. OKAY? R-S-V-P TO THIS PARTY. PLEASE R-S-V-P TO THIS PARTY. DADDY...

I'm upstairs, down a hallway and behind a closed door. She's yelling loud enough to make me wince. She wasn't being rude on purpose. I could hear the excitement of being asked to do a "big girl" task for Mommy.

Still: imagine what it was like in person.

Clearly, I'd remembered to stress Manners and to throw in a few words of French, but totally forgot to touch on the Don't Yell Indoors lesson which we've covered so many times in the past.
 
My bad.

A few minutes later, she returns...

Clementine: Daddy says if I scream like that again, I'm not going to the party. I said I won't do it again, so I am going.  

Before I could say anything else, she was off to her room to tell her stuffed ponies about the party. 

Sigh
 

Illustration from: 

Goops and how to be them : a manual of manners for polite infants inculcating many juvenile virtues both by precept and example (c1900), by Gelett Burgess 

Clementine learned what RSVP means.

I have again learned not to take anything for granted when speaking to five year olds. 


~~~

Electronic copies of Goops and how to be them : a manual of manners for polite infants inculcating many juvenile virtues both by precept and example (c1900), by Gelett Burgess can be found here at Archive.org^.

Electronic copies of More Goops and how not to be them : a manual of manners for impolite infants, depicting the characteristics of many naughty and thoughtless children, with instructive illustrations (c1903) can be found here at Archive.org^

Illustration from:

More Goops and how not to be them : a manual of manners for impolite infants, depicting the characteristics of many naughty and thoughtless children, with instructive illustrations (c1903), by Gelett Burgess

Both were popular turn-of-the-century (the 20th century, of course) guides to teaching manners to children with wit and humor. Both are out of copyright, and are free to download.

Another of the Goop books is available here, at Project Gutenberg^. Titled The Goop Directory of Juvenile Offenders Famous for their Misdeeds and Serving as a Salutary Example for all Virtuous Children (c 1913), it's available in several mobile formats.

Illustration from:
The Goop Directory of Juvenile Offenders Famous for their Misdeeds and Serving as a Salutary Example for all 
Virtuous Children, (c 1913), by Gelett Burgess

 
Other books by Gelett Burgess are available at Project Gutenberg, here^. 

Namaste

deena

Happy Seahorse Day

My dad died several years ago.

antique image, altered by me

I can't begin to tell you how much I miss him. Not a day goes by where I don't think of him, wonder what he'd think of something in the news, want to share one of the girl's accomplishments, or just be able to say hello and hear his voice.

antique father's day image in the PD

So much of what I am comes from him. I try to be fair, because he was. I try to listen to people, because he did. My love of nature, of books, of science, and history, all from him. He took me places, and showed me as much of the world as he could. He gave me a deep and abiding appreciation and understanding of our country and what it means to be an American.

antique image in the PD

He taught me to appreciate what I have. He taught me to always try to see the humour in things.

Ultimately, he taught me the hard lesson that life is far too short to try to change things that we don't have the power to change. This means that we owe it to ourselves to be as true to ourselves as possible, to be brave, to be good, and to do our very best.

So, on this Mother's Day, rather than focus on the negative (like why this isn't about my mother, for example), I want to focus on the positive, and thank my father. I want to thank all of the fathers and others who are mothers without the title;  who are caretakers and providers, who are listeners and supporters, often without thanks or recognition.

antique seahorse image, altered by me

Thank you. Thank you for caring. Thank you for nurturing. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your advice. Thank you for just being there. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Hippocampus
image in the PD, from here^, 

originally from U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Now, why seahorses? Seahorses are the only animal on the planet where the male bears and nurtures the young. It occured to me this past week, as I was dreading another yearly replay of "OMG I love my mother sooooooooo much", which I can't relate to, that seahorses are the perfect symbol to represent how I always feel in the days leading up to Mother's Day. They represent nurturing and caring by people in non-traditional roles.

 Spiny seahorse (Hippocampus histrix) 

from here^, used in accordance with  

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

photo by Nick Hobgood^ 

If, like me, you find yourself unable to celebrate Mother's Day in the traditional way for whatever reason, consider trying to identify a person in your life who helped you, who nurtured you, who cared, who was there. And then finding a way to say Thank You.

antique seahorse image, altered by me

Happy Seahorse Day.

Namaste

deena