The Zürich office draws engineers from across Europe and the world, and often those engineers have trailing spouses who do not have permission to work in Switzerland. How lovely it is to have an excuse to be, ahem, idle.
But what's really lovely is that some of the wives who have been here for three years, since the office opened, remembered how rattling it can be to be a trailing spouse, and opened their weekly coffee klatch, the Spooglers, to any wife (or trailing husband) who might be on the lookout for a new friend, or some advice, or an excuse to get out of the home.
Naturally shy, I didn't really feel inclined to just drop in on someone else's party, but I remembered something a friend told me. She was reflecting on how much we ask of our children, constantly thrusting them into new and difficult situations: new classes, new sports, new cities, new languages. Her opinion is that it's important, as a parent, to push yourself as well, and to put yourself outside your comfort zone. It keeps you honest as a person, and sets a good example for your children.
Well, I'm certainly asking a lot of my three lately. So I've promised myself to push while I'm here, too: to try to learn this language, and to try to map out these streets in my mind, and, gulp, to get out there and meet new people.
So Joey and I trundled through the snow this morning, got lost only twice, and, finally, made a few acquaintances over a cup of cappuccino. I'm actually not all together certain whether it was okay to bring a child, but I certainly couldn't have asked for better behavior. He sat on my lap, quite, for the whole hour we were there, playing with his stickers and murmuring quietly to himself. And no one seemed to mind. There is another group of Google wives who have children, and they're planning on starting up a play group in a couple of weeks, so perhaps that would be a better home for Joey and me, but, for now, it was refreshing to hear a little English and to meet a half-dozen interesting new women.
We didn't get to stay out long because we had to get back in time for Ella and Alex: they begged to be allowed to walk home by themselves today, as all the other children do, and they’ve proven they know the way, so I let them. We live across the street from a family housing area, and very single house has a child in the kindergarten, or grade school, or high school. That means we're constantly running into classmates of Alex's and Ella's on the playground or in the community center. And that means, ten minutes before and after class, the streets and sidewalks are flooded with children. Essentially, it's very safe, and since school is so close, I decided to go with it and see what happened.
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| Trudging off to class |
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| Wall mural on the family housing buildings |
What happened is this: Alex came home grinning from ear to ear, flushed with the achievement of boldly walking the 200 M home alone. And Ella...she came home with a giant snowball, aimed to pelt me when I opened the door. (Luckily, she had the wisdom to pull back when I gave her my trademark eyebrow cock.)
I'm considering, once again, restricting her access to Calvin and Hobbes comic books.
My little mischief-maker had to bolt her lunch and get back to school quickly: Thursday is her day for private German lessons. So I gave her a favorite lunch and pushed her out the door. Perhaps, though, I'm being too optimistic in my children's abilities to get to and from school. Five minutes later, I looked out the window, and there was Ella's little pink coat, leaning over a snowman. (Since she was going in early, there was no tide of children to push her along) I gave her a holler, and she looked up, surprised, slapped her forehead, and took off running to school.
I'd wondered what it would be like, this German immersion for my kids, and how quickly they'd start to pick up the language. Very quickly, apparently. Alex, unconsciously, was coloring today and was singing under his breath "Spiel-e, spiel-e, spiel-e." When Alex was calling for me, she added her voice to his: "Wo ist Maaaa-ma?"
As irresistible as the snow was this afternoon, the kids were exhausted by four o'clock. Dennis had come home early to take the kids up the mountain to the sledding trail, but Joey and Alex are catching colds, and Ella had extra homework today because of her German tutoring session. She practice her numbers: her teacher gave her a little cup of flashcards, 1-100 and she was supposed to go through them all. Dennis sat down with her to quiz her, but got distracted by Joey and his trains. At which point, Ella grinned and said “Oh, so you think this is boring, too?” But she continued, contentedly enough, on her own: “Eighty-two, that’s also zweiundachtzig. Fifty-six, that’s also fsechsundfünfzig...”
And so the sled remains in the box for one more day
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