Now my Bride just has to learn to play the half-empty liquor jug

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Fiddling Critter In an attempt to further scar the Critter's poor vulnerable young psyche, we have enrolled her in first mandatory music class. Suzuki violin. The teacher at Queen's school for girls looked like her crumpet was going to come back up on her when I called it a "fiddle". Hey, what do you want from me, lady? I pretend at culture, but I still think salted & boiled peanuts constitute haute cuisine. When I bought the violin for the Critter, she had to be 'sized.' We ended up with a "1/16th," which is the smallest violin they make - 1/16th of what, I asked? It's not 1/16th the size of a normal violin. More like 1/4. The guy at the store (which specializes in "orchestral instruments," which left me wondering - how many french horns does one have to sell to make a living?) didn't know why they called it that. Mm-hmm. Some expert. Whatever the reason, the thing is practically a toy - so tiny! Set next to my banjo, it looks like something scaled down for an oompa loompa. Which is about right, I guess, for a 4 year old, who likes chocolate. The Critter's first proper class isn't until tomorrow, but she insisted on "practicing" tonight. So I showed her my impression of how to hold it (based pretty much on a guess and what I remember seeing on The Beverly Hillbillies), and she had at it. She actually made violin like noises, too. But not before she made my Bride leave the room, and shut the door. She needed "peace and quiet" to concentrate on practice, she said. She has also told us that she wants to take ballet, more swim classes, and, after catching a recent Bruce Lee marathon on the telly, the deadly art of jeet kune do. I wonder what face the teacher will make when I ask her if she knows "The Devil Went Down to Georgia".
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What sound does that upside down "e" thing make?

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Now that the Critter has started real school, she's coming home with real homework. I struggle with this for a couple of reasons: a) She's four years old. b) My historical disregard for homework as a concept. You can ask my parents. For my entire academic career, I believed that homework could be eliminated through an intense focus on time management of my school-hours: i.e. I could cram 90% of my homework in the 10 minutes before class began. Now that I'm a parent, though, and it's no longer my homework, I can get behind this whole homework concept. So my bride and I are taking turns with the Critter at helping her with her assignments. But it's not without problems So far, they've been concentrating on the alphabet, and I'm finding out that I'm woefully unqualified to help. As I mentioned before, Queen's School For Girls is quite fussy about doing things properly. Including the alphabet. Instead of teaching the letters in the traditional way I was taught (you know, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G... H, I, J, K, LMNOP...), they teach the "sounds" of the letters. They quickly realized that we had been teaching Ella the names of the letters these past couple of years and shook their heads at our out-dated ways of doing things. Then I was told that there are now 46 letter sounds which are taught, not just the simple 26 letters I learned, silly American. Say huh? How the hell are there 46? If I add 26 + the 5 alternate vowel sounds, and sometimes 1 for "y", I only get 32. +1 each for "sh", "ch" and "th", and I'm up to 35. Add a few for the ones I would think of if I wasn't feeling on the spot, and I'm still not at 46. I kind of expected to be useless when the Critter gets to chemistry or physics or something I struggled with back when it mattered, but I wasn't prepared to be so far behind before she turns 5.
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