History lessons required

Dean took the boys to a Civil War re-enactment yesterday. Our boys are still young so their knowledge of the Civil War is limited. We didn't realize how limited until yesterday.

Neil told me he saw our president speak. George W. doesn't seem like the Civil War kind of guy, but who knows...

"Yeah, I saw President George Clooney."

Ahh. After a moment of inner speculation on the awesomeness of a George Clooney presidency, I let Neil know that George Clooney isn't the president and the person he actually saw was an actor playing our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. I tried to throw something in there about the Gettysburg Address (which the actor had recited), but Neil was too busy with his 19th century gun toy.

Jack didn't like the cannons, but he did like the Civil War military hat he brought home (Northern issue of course). 

Neil wanted to tell me about the battle he saw. 

"The Civil War was a tie, Mom." 

Not exactly, my son...

"The Blue Team and the Gray Team shot at each other. Then one guy from the Gray Team tried to run away and his own Gray guy shot him!"

They aren't teams, honey. They are different sides in a war -- The North vs. the South. It's the Southern states and the Northern states of the United States...

"Yeah, the Blue team won the first battle, but the second one was a tie..."

It's not a football game. It's a war. What you saw was a re-enactment of certain battles, but the war was a long time ago... 

Neil was just staring at me blankly. And that's when I broke down and used Pokemon as an analogy (each battle has several fights... sort of like war. You can win a battle but still lose the war)... I am ashamed.