I feel an international incident coming on

[legalalien]

DS (4) has just got out the plastic soldiers and is instructing our new Italian au pair that she gets to be the Germans. Apparently they are "the enemy". So far she seems mildly amused. As far as I know he isn't aware that the Italians were on the Axis side for a bit, so we should be mostly OK. However he is insisting that the battles take place in "occupied France" (after she suggested Germany - rejected as being historically inaccurate).

snort at this. excellent

not quite up there, however, with the in-our-house infamous infamous where three year old DS surprised some German tourists at Duxford with "Achtung, Spitfire!", coupled with frenetic waving of a model spitfire. They were in the Battle of Britain hall, but had clearly not come prepared for that.

please tell me you are some sort of history professor...

no, and I'm not even interested in WWII. However DS has obsessed grandfathers on both sides, so I think it is genetic. Also I let him watch some sort of documentary on the Battle of Britain when he was 3 and he's been a bit odd ever since.

Excellent test as to whether said au pair has the requisite sense of humour, I would think - you should incorporate it into interviews...

I am impressed with your DS's knowledge of modern history - my DS would be more likely to insist on gladiators vs lions (with ambulance on standby for the lions)

Sitting down to watch Mr. Bean's holiday with a previous French AP. She wanted to know what language the boy was supposed to be speaking as it certainly wasn't French.

thats so funny, I remember going with my dss to Cyprus and staying in a german hotel.. My lovely but slightly racist father-in-law had given tham loads of war comics to read.. so achtung and gott in himmel and British pig dog, and die you Britisher became commen words in their pool side games.. perplexed Germans everywhere.

ROFL

pmsl at "die you britisher". Au pair clearly has a sense of humour and got her own back, as when they emerged from the playroom she and DS were apparently the victorious English and I was the defeated German team (apparently my troops had been, in absentia, dispatched to prisoner of war camps to drink cups of tea. I may have mentioned this to DS at some previous point in conjunction with something about the terrible perils of inflicting tea on people used to the coffee cantata. not sure what came over me there).

Anyway, she has just told me (after half a bottle of chablis) that she really wants to improve her English to better understand DS's strange games....) that's good, right?

Haha, brilliant