A Pleasant Fathering Fail...

Ahhhhh... a story from before the Corona-time. Is it too soon to start reminiscing about the good old days when people could pack together in a small space like this? I should cue the Grampa Simpson voice...

Anyway, this isn't a story about the current situation... but more of a realisation as I was going through my old photos that this was a story that I had meant to tell quite some time ago, but had somehow forgotten about. It's an amusing mix of well-intentioned parenting (fathering...) fail meets lack of fluency in Dutch (the language of the country that I live in!).

So, this story begins with me seeing an advertisement for "Natuur en Kunst", a sort of kids holiday festival event at the local University. Now, in Dutch, "Natuurkunst" is Physics, the Natural Arts I guess would be the literal translation. In English, we had a similar sort of beginning for the way that the sciences were named.

Naturally (haha), in my slightly incompetent Dutch reading, I had seen what I had wanted to see... and thought that it would be really nice to take my oldest daughter to a Physics festival at the local University!

... so, I was a little bit confused when we arrived at the University atrium with heaps and heaps of tables set up as if they were for an Arts and Crafts class.

... and with lots of greenery for crafting as well! I guess it's pretty obvious by now... but "Natuur en Kunst" translates to "Nature and Crafts". DAMNIT! I mean, there is nothing wrong with Nature and Crafts... but when you are coming expecting to see lasers, robots and black holes... well, it's a little bit disappointing!

However, my oldest girl is really into doing crafts.... I mean, she really loves the Maths and Science stuff as well. Although, sometimes I wonder if she is just being polite because I go completely nerdy over stuff like that (but she does want to watch the Mars Rover Live Feed with me tomorrow!). So, I think she wasn't overly disappointed that she would be spending the afternoon crafting little cool things from recycled CDs and natural products.

This was the first thing that she gravitated to. Making a spinner top from an old CD (remember those?) and a marble for the spinning point. By drawing a pattern on top in a sort of plastic paint, you could get some really nice patterns as it spun round. I had thought to suggest that she draw some patterns that would turn into a cool illusion when spun, but in the end, I thought it was best for her just to express her own creativity. Plus, I have terrible taste in colours and design...

Oddly enough, seated very far back from the heavily crowded crafting tables, there was a sort of engineering station with Legos. This was much more what we came for... crafting some cool mechanical windmills! Sadly, there was no place for lasers or black holes, but Lego (and Meccano) crafting is a really close second.

The purpose of the expedition was to give my wife some time out from having all of us at home at the time. So, in that respect, it was a successful mission. I hesitated with telling my wife that I had made an incredibly stupid translation mistake... and that I ended up going to an Arts and Crafts festival instead of a Physics and Engineering one. However, she already had question when our oldest daughter started showing her the little things that she had made...

Sigh, I think the life of a father will always be full of these little interesting mishaps. Well intentioned and still lots of fun, but the sort of situation that will elicit groans and rolls of the eyes from your partner!