August 30
JS is visiting! JS was our German highschool exchange student that lived with us 2010-2011. She arrived Tuesday afternoon by train and is staying until Saturday. Unfortunately with the girls now in school we haven't done anything particularly remarkable other than to show her around town a bit! She's been on another school-shopping trip to Bad Godesberg (apparently "mit halbem Rand" means that the paper needs to be lined all the way to the edges and then have vertical lines marking the edges in Maggie's notebooks. oops!). She's walked with us to GE's Kindergarten to drop off the first signed paperwork. She's gone shopping with me in Bonn Zentrum and then hurried to pick up HR from school. She's accompanied us to a playdate with the family from church who also have 4 girls.... Pretty boring from my view but quite busy nonetheless!
GE has promptly outgrown her shoes. Yeah for me! Shoe shopping in Europe is perhaps one of my favorite things--especially when it's children's shoes. Here's the first pair:
Playdate: our first with a German family! I am happy to report that a German house with 4 girls is as crazy as an American house with 4 girls! My girls happily disappeared upstairs to play with the PlayMobil while JS and I stayed downstairs to visit with the mother. 2 hours later my brain was pretty fried, but the good part was that JS has no qualms about correcting my German so I didn't just blunder along making mistake after mistake and not catching it. I told JS that she has to speak German with me now that we are in Germany! She's keeping up her end of that bargain. :)
Tonight I went to another parent meeting for the 1st Graders, this time focused specifically on HR's classroom and how her teacher is running things. I'm amazed at how immediately the math concepts are impressed on the kids in a way that encourages them to calculate in their heads rather than count on their fingers and how they teach spelling/reading and yet take each child at the level that they are at and help them to move forward. I won't get into all the technicalities but it goes without saying that I was pretty impressed.
HR's teacher told me as I left the parent meeting that on the first few days of school HR had cried a little--not a throw-down sort of melt-down but just quietly barely holding it together. She said that she would just take her on her lap then and explain sometimes a bit in English and then things would move on. Today she didn't cry at all! So, she's adjusting and I'm thankful she had a teacher who was willing to take a little extra tender care for her! HR, of course, hasn't told me about this even when I've talked to her about school. I'll have to remember to give her some extra squeezes and leave a note in her Frühstuck box.
August 31
Quote of the day, GE to JS: "You say 'Doch!' I say 'Nein!'" (If you get this, I'm impressed.)
Wow, can't believe how fast this month flew by! The first full week of school has passed and we survived. I'm not sure how these short days are going to go in the winter--it gets pretty crazy in the apartment when we're all together from 1 or 2 p.m. on!
Today was rainy and cold, truly German weather. GE wore some of her rain-gear for the first time to ride to the store. She seemed quite happy to wear the bulky gear and was warm and dry despite the drizzly weather. HR and ME went to the children's choir again at the church. Now we are beginning to recognize faces of people from church and school and make more connections. So nice to feel part of the community rather than looking from the outside in. When I returned with the girls, JS was helping MK with homework (oh how I wish JS could live with us this year!!). After dinner JS and I went to the movies--something we liked to do when she lived with us in the States. This time it was all in German though! About a quarter of the way into the movie I realized that I wasn't even thinking about it being in German. That was a rather cool realization!
September 1
Enjoyed a leisurely morning and big pancake breakfast (one of JS's favorites). Then we trouped everyone out the door to take JS to the Hauptbahnhof and see her off. It's remarkable how she slipped right back into our family. JS, you'll always be one of my "girls"! It was great having her with us again and this time getting to speak lots of German instead of English.
Once JS's train left, we boarded another U-bahn, destination Siegburg. I knew that the used-bike shop where I bought the first bicycle was not far from the train station, so we thought we'd check it out and see if we could find a bike for J. We've been scouting--checking the online Kalaydo.de website for listings. J went to try one in Bad Godesberg Friday afternoon but there were too many things wrong with it. Unlucky for us, the shop in Siegburg was closed (for personal reasons; it's normally open on Saturdays). Our backup plan was to explore a bit and find a nice place to eat lunch. So we headed back to the Marktplatz, ate a light lunch at an outdoor Italian eatery, then headed up the hill towards a playground. Fantastic slides down the side of the hill (metal ones, so they really scooted!), balance beam, swings, climbing wall. J remarked how we should be writing a book about how to find the best playgrounds in Europe! We also notice that frequently the playgrounds have apparatuses that would never make it in the US--too high, over a hard surface, not enclosed, etc. Love that the kids are getting some really challenging play here. Non of my kids are scared of the tough ones. GE is the only one who freaks me out because she pretty much wants to do what all the big kids are doing. Thankfully the big sisters don't mind watching out for her when she's dangling from the top of some giant rope jungle gym!
The Abtei (Abbey) Michaelsberg http://www.abtei-michaelsberg.de/start.html sits atop a hill overlooking the village. Until 2011 it was a functioning Benedictine Abbey but went bankrupt and had to close up. You can still walk around the grounds and gardens but you can no longer go into the library or museum.
Part of the walls surrounding the gardens of the Abbey. Quite picturesque--I could imagine the monks spending quiet time in and around these enclosed gardens.
These are all from the rose garden at the Abbey.
The girls were picking up the roses that had already fallen off or been picked by someone else.
Another gorgeous day! We had a quiet morning and restful early afternoon, then around 3 piled onto our bikes (minus J) and headed to the Rheineaue (large public park--Central Park style--along the Rhein river). Biking with all the girls is at once frustrating, stressful, and fun. The first two because the girls are all still learning the biking/street rules as well as etiquette towards other bikers and pedestrians! I'm constantly calling out instructions, asking one or the other to drop back and give HR some space, or for someone out front to please stop and wait! I'm sure it will get easier, but for now, it's not as relaxing to bike with all the girls as I would wish. Meanwhile J was hopping buses and U-bahns to the north part of the city to try out a bike advertised on Kalaydo.de. He got a bike but about 2 miles into the ride home, the chain broke. Grrr. (Add to list this week: take J's bike to repair shop.) So, he found a bus going to our neighborhood, locked up the bike at home and went back by foot/train to the Rheinaue to meet us. The girls and I had toured around the pond, along the river, back up the hill towards town, pit-stop for ice cream, balance-beam style playground, then parked ourselves at a larger playground to wait for J. We rounded off the adventure with Bratwurst and Pommes (French Fries) eaten while sitting in the Rose Garden.
After settling the girls into bed, we popped over (isn't that a quaint British saying?!) to the neighbors for a glass of wine/beer and met a few more of the European Astronauts and their assorted spouses and partners. We stayed for just an hour or so to visit. Very interesting, diverse group of people!
September 3
School mornings are beginning to run more smoothly, although there was still the usual grumbling about having to get up so early! GE and I went with our neighbor, RP, in her van to a large shopping center--a good thing because I had skipped shopping on Friday and Saturday aside from a few fresh items while we were in Siegburg and our pantry and fridge were getting pretty sparse! I think I shocked the check-out lady with the volume of food I bought. Still not even close to the scale of what I would typically buy in one shopping trip in the U.S. Back home, GE stayed at the neighbor's while I made a quick trip with J's broken bicycle to the repair shop, then met ME and HR at the Grundschule. The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful: MK came home, everyone worked on Hausaufgaben (homework), GE took a nap, I cleaned up the kitchen from lunch/snacks, woke GE up and took her on my bike to Bad Godesberg along with ME and HR to take J's shoes to the repair shop for some new soles (oh my is he ever hard on shoes!). ME had a little allowance money and so we checked out a small toy shop, discovered a pet store with chipmunks, bunnies, birds, and fish, made our way back to the bikes and came home. The weather was pleasant-mixed sun and clouds, about 70 degrees.
I feel like I ought to be sharing these profound thoughts and interactions, but really everything is beginning to feel sort of normal. MK's homework is still somewhat confounding--Daddy helped a fair bit again with Deutsch and Physik (she was supposed to figure out how much the height of the Eiffel Tower changes between the coldest day in winter and the warmest day of summer based on iron's rate of expansion due to heat). But other than that (and her natural tendencies to avoid and procrastinate when she has a task she doesn't like), it's not all that different from home.
HR asked me what "Hab dich!" means when they play tag during Sport or Pause. It's the equivalent of our "Gotcha!" ME despaired a bit of learning German as fast as she would like and I had to point out how much she'd learned in just a week and a half of school (she tries to say everything in German at school and has made quite a bit of progress in speaking and understanding). I pointed out that the big difference is not that she hasn't been learning how to say things but that there is still a big gap between what she wants to be able to say and what she's able to say--in other words, her thoughts are more complicated than her German is able to communicate so it feels like she still can't speak German even though she's saying a lot. It's just on the scale of say, a 2 year old, rather than a 9 year old!
I have several things to look forward to for the rest of the week: MS & LD are coming for Frühstuck and Kaffeetrinken tomorrow morning. Weds. afternoon we go to play at K's house again (the family w/4 girls), coffee & socializing with my neighbor, RP, and some of her girlfriends on Thursday a.m. and then it's Friday! Hopefully J's bike will be fixed by then and we'll be able to do a whole family tour along the Rhein, weather permitting.
September 4
I should take a picture: there are papers covered in children's paintings on the dining table, parts of puzzles and game pieces in the living room (MS & LD brought a pile of games/puzzles they picked up at a church rummage sale on Saturday), the laundry is hung by the balcony door and supper is stewing... Looks like Home!
Had a nice visit with MS & LD. I can tell it's been a few days since JS left because it was harder to switch into German. Amazing how just a few days of not speaking much German slows down my German-brain gears. Still, I think I'm catching more of my mistakes and correcting them. We walked to GE's Kindergarten and back (picked up GE's sweater that we had accidentally left there when we visited last week). When we returned the contract from the KG was in the mailbox!
After lunch I got a call from GE's Kindergarten asking if I'd gotten the contract. She'll start on Monday. First I'll come along and stay with her (either in the same room or another room in the building) and we'll stay for as long as she likes or just until lunch (it's up to the child). The next day I can go out for 1/2 an hour to an hour depending on GE's wishes. Then we'll just take one day at a time to see if she wants me to stay or go, whether she wants to taty for lunch, etc. This process can take as long as 2 weeks to a month or so depending on the child. I won't try to predict...
MK brought a friend home from school. Nice to finally put a face to the name we'd been hearing lots of. Seems like a very sweet girl (and GERMAN! Yeah!). They took a walk outside, ate some ice cream...
Evening: just sent an email to a voice teacher! We'll see if she has room in her studio and has time to meet with me to see how we get along.Would definitely give me something to do. I might need to start shopping for a used keyboard...
Spent 1.5 hours working through the KG contract and checking and signing where appropriate. Thank you Google Translate or it would have taken even longer!
September 5
Another busy morning: GE and I rode to her KG, dropped off the contract, went on to Bad Godesberg to pick up a few items on the KG supplies list, get her picture taken for the KG ID cards, pick up J's shoes from the repair shop, then back to Friesdorf to drop off my bike at the bike shop for a new kick-stand (the current one is just on one side and with GE sitting in the seat the bike topples over--very cumbersome and dangerous), then grabbed a few items from the grocery store, stopped off at a playground for 30 mins then back to the Grundschule to pick up Hannah! Whew.
This afternoon we went to KE's again (the family with 4 girls) to play and visit. Got into a very interesting conversation about c-sections and midwives. Germany is trending towards more c-sections and a similar US pattern of elective c-sections and more Dr. care rather than midwives. Learned some new vocabulary--this certainly wasn't part of my conversations when I was in 5th and 6th grade in Marburg or even as au pair when I was 16!!
Your accompanying GE to school for the first few weeks sounds like a great gift of nurturing for her. It is terrific that this is built into the education system. Are all mothers with kids in KG involved? It would give you another way to meet people.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like quite an enriching time you all are having. I always find it very rewarding when I live in another culture.
Virginia sends you her love.
Dennis, the Kindergarten here is the equivalent to our nursery school or preschools: i.e. ages 2-6 until they are ready to enter the elementary school. There is a lot of emphasis on learning through play and hardly anything academic unlike many preschools in the US. The amount of parent involvement varies from KG to KG though, depending on whether they are city/private, Waldorf/Montessori, etc. They are very sensitive to the child's needs and that the child be allowed to get comfortable at the school at his/her own pace. My staying there during the initial "Einwöhnungszeit" (Adjustment time) is standard practice for most KG, but as soon as the child seems ready to be left, they want the parents out! :) Unfortunately I missed the beginning of the year when other moms would be staying too, so I'm not meeting other mothers that way and children are dropped off at varying times in a 1.5 hour window. However, they are having an Elternabend (Parent night) which seems to be a standard thing for any class/KG up through the 4th grade, so hopefully I'll make some connections there.
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