First Week of School

Well today is Friday of the first week that the kids are in school.  I wondered what I would do with myself since the kids are in school all day, and I have forgotten that EVERYTHING takes longer than I thought it would.  My days are chock full of things to do.  I am hardly home- just going to the grocery store is a 2-3 hour affair.  I am hoping for an afternoon where I can read, but even today doesn’t look like that is going to happen.  I need to go to the store to return a broken (new) phone that Chris just bought and the girls need sport (commonly known as Gym) clothes from the uniform shop.  Can’t have any old sport sweat pants. Have to have white polo, all must have the school logo.  And the phone is very important.  Hopefully my wonderfully clever husband can get the Vonage up and running this weekend, as we now have internet full time and a German phone!

Here are some of the highlights of the week; good, bad, and the ugly:

Kids are doing great transitioning to the new school.  Maggie is doing great going to school all day, every day, and she doesn’t seem as tired as some of the others.  She is working hard on learning what is asked of her.  Today we were working on spelling.   Get a load of these words- smart, skip, smack, to name a few.  She is trying very hard to master them.  Sometimes I think that we under estimate what the kids can do.  By the way, and this is for my dad, her teacher is Scottish, with a lovely brogue to boot.  Mags might come back sounding that way too.

Bren is doing ok.  He loves his teacher, who is planning a sleep over in “the hole” (the cafeteria) of the school sometime soon.  He is already told that he is going to have a field trip to the planetarium, and so far has had no homework.  He has made friends, and seems genuinely happy.  He has been exhausted from the week- so tired we have sent him from the dinner table to go to bed early.  Some short tempers because of the tiredness too.

Will has read to his teacher, who has commented that he reads quite well.  The little homework that he has had has been a breeze, and he is settling in well.  He hasn’t mentioned any friends at school, but he didn’t in the US so much either.  I’m going to check up on that at Pick up time.  The time change and all the activity hasn’t seemed to slow down his energy at all.  Frieder ( the relocation guy) is looking for wrestling for him.

Em has made a few friends, both around here and at school.  We ride the train to school with a few families, and they have girls her age.  She had a rough time last week thinking about going to a different school, but I must commend St. George’s for their helpfulness in her transition.  Again no homework for her, but I think that is going to change next week.  I hope it does.  She has begun to go to “Guides” (British girl scouts) with Charlotte (Karen’s daughter) and I think that might be a good outlet for her.  In a word, this week is better!

Chris seems to be jumping into his job full force.  He is as busy as ever.  Next week the hours become a bit longer for him.  The plan as of right now is that we will see him a bit more in morning some days.  There is no word as of yet about his work visa, and no complaining from Chris.  He is glad that our trips to IKEA have grown smaller so that he doesn’t have to put so many things together.

As for me, I am making my way.  Many things are the same, yet so different.  There are things that I seem to have forgotten (blocked) out.  Like the oven.  It took getting out the computer to translate the different settings.  I think that I finally have it.  It will take making a loaf of bread to be sure.  The dryer is another process that took longer than I plan to figure out.  And I am sllllloooooowwwwwwwllllly meeting other moms at the school.  (One as of today.) Seems many people drive their kids to school, and there aren’t as many people watching their kids on the play ground.  At St. George’s, the teachers are out there.  Most parents drop off and leave.  I have caught up with a few friends that are here from the first time, and that has been fun.  It is nice that we have the group from JCI to band together. 

We are working through the change, and I can see progress.  The house is coming together, we have a car, and we are on the time zone.  It has only been a couple of weeks!  This weekend we are planning on going out as a family to the Neanderthal Museum to see an Exhibit on the Wooly mammoths.   I hoping that it will be interesting, and if not it will get us out of the house.  J