Apfelsaft

Jack and I are home from our wild roadtrip across the country, the phrase "wild roadtrip" here meaning "journey through endless fields of cows." In our absence my family had taken the opportunity to stock up on apple juice.

"It's like cider, only worse," I told Jack, after bringing him a cup. I prefer my apple-related food heated and mulled with spices, usually with at least some caramel mixed in. Without it, the juice just tastes thin, weak. Maybe that's my fault for buying the bottles made from concentrate. We've been trying to avoid corn syrup, all of us -- this house is corny enough as is -- but the from concentrate is unavoidable unless you go to some place stocked with vegan magazines and quinoa. Those places are strange and terrible places. Orpheus and Aeneas may have been able to scrape their way in and out of there, but I'm not sure I want to try my chances,

I am teaching Jack German, and the both of us have taken up the study of Irish. I've been enamored of linguistics for quite some time and would like to raise my children to be bilingual, especially given recent research into neurolinguistics. But I also just like languages. Learning them, reading them, speaking them. I have books on Japanese, Welsh, French, Spanish, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, and Italian. Duolingo is my best friend, but I've always wanted a language-learning buddy. I'm grateful that Jack has happily signed up for the position.

I'm pretty good at language-teaching. My strategy is to just speak as much of it as I can to the teachee, and maybe switch their phone and Facebook to the language, too.

My efforts are appreciated just as much as you can imagine.

"Jetzt hast du eine Tasse Apfelsaft, Jack."

"Katie, noooooooo."

#JackandKathrynstudyGerman