Mr Professor

I'm trying to encourage the kids to use the phone. I apologise to those neighbors who unwittingly answer a call from my offspring. But the only way they will learn how to use this tool is by actually using it. I hope you have a sense of humor.

Especially in this cold snap we are experiencing, it's nice for my kids to call their neighbors to see if they can play instead of walking down the street in the cold only to find that neighbor boy can't play because he didn't clean his room this morning.

So the other day, I overheard this conversation between firstborn and a neighbor:

Firstborn: I possess a strategy for which I need the consent of the convention of the directors before I proceed to execute the strategy.
Silence.
Firstborn: OK. I have a plan. But I need to run it by you guys before I do it; just to get your approval.

Pretty bad when an 11 year old has to translate back into simple terms.

You see, in 3rd grade they started learning to increase their writing skills by substituting "baby" words for "grown-up" words. This is a skill Firstborn relishes. He loves big words. So he practices in regular speech. He must have composed this speech all morning while "waiting until a more reasonable hour to call his friends." Not everyone gets up at 6am.

Even Grandma got to see Mr. Professor in action. The first day of her Thanksgiving visit, we waited for the boys at the bus stop. When the 12 kids that get off at this street disembarked, the same neighbor boy from the telephone conversation yelled out to Firstborn, "When can you play?" To which Firstborn responded, "Not for an indeterminate amount of time!"

I saw Grandma's eyebrows raise. Yep. That's Firstborn.

The neighbors all seem to have a sense of humor. One boy was home schooled until this year and he is familiar with the idea of using big words. He does a pretty good job of participating with Firstborn. The other boy prefers to communicate in grunts and single syllable words, which he tends to mumble at super-sonic speed. He's hard to understand but very funny if you catch a word he's saying. They are all smart kids, and very fun to be around.