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"I found out yesterday that I am not smarter than a first grader. That&amp;#039;s right, a first grader. And oh, how my fourth grader finds this amusing. I was playing the DVD game of &amp;quot;Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?&amp;quot; with my son, Nicholas. When I selected the category, &amp;quot;First Grade Vocabulary,&amp;quot; our TV displayed the following question: True or False? The German words &amp;quot;donner&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;blitzen&amp;quot; mean &amp;quot;thunder&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;lightning.&amp;quot; I thought, These are &amp;quot;First Grade Vocabulary&amp;quot; words? Where? In German school? Munich, perhaps? I figured there&amp;#039;s no way I could make it all the way to 40 without knowing that two of Santa&amp;#039;s reindeer would have great names for children whose parents work on The Weather Channel in Dusseldorf, so I answered &amp;quot;False.&amp;quot; I was wrong. Suddenly, Jeff Foxworthy appeared on my television to mock me before encouraging me to say, &amp;quot;I am not smarter than a fifth grader,&amp;quot; hand over the DVD remote to my son and go sulk. Well, he didn&amp;#039;t tell me to do the last part. I came up with that all on my own. When my husband got home, I asked him the very same question, figuring that a man whose mother emigrated from Germany, and who had, indeed, attended German school would know the answer. Except, he also said, &amp;quot;False.&amp;quot; Aha! I&amp;#039;m vindicated! I mean, really. Who the heck knows the answer to that question? Certainly not an American first grader. But today, I did what any embarrassed 21st century parent would do: I looked it up on the Internet. And here&amp;#039;s what I found: Donner - His original name is Donder, meaning &amp;quot;thunder&amp;quot; in German.  Blitzen - She is known as the lightning reindeer because the word &amp;quot;Blitz&amp;quot; is German for lightning.  Aha! So Donder with a D in it means thunder, but Donner with two Ns really doesn&amp;#039;t. And Blitz with no EN means lightning, but Blitzen doesn&amp;#039;t. I think Jeff Foxworthy shouldn&amp;#039;t be so quick to ridicule me. His game&amp;#039;s answer isn&amp;#039;t quite right. Now I want my virtual thousand bucks back and the chance to whoop my son&amp;#039;s butt at this game, because he hasn&amp;#039;t let me forget that I am not smarter than a first grader, but he is. In fact, he made it to the fifth grade level before failing out. Considering he&amp;#039;s in fourth grade, that&amp;#039;s pretty good. But I&amp;#039;m a grown-up, and I&amp;#039;m not smarter than a seven-year-old. At least, that&amp;#039;s what Nicholas is telling everyone. Tonight, I will share the true definition of Donner and Blitzen with my son. It&amp;#039;s the only way I can save face. And then I&amp;#039;ll write a letter to the creators of the game stating my case for answering &amp;quot;False&amp;quot; on the question that&amp;#039;s in question.  In the meantime, whenever I see Santa and his reindeer this holiday season, I will grumble and curse \u2013 in German, perhaps \u2013 at Foxworthy and his silly little TV show&amp;#039;s DVD game. Who&amp;#039;s smarter than a first grader now, pal? Your answer is wrong and I&amp;#039;m right, danke sch\u00F6n very much. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2192/good-grief-112107/?src=shelter_footer>