Expatriots, unite! Or, not.

Joey spent the morning waiting for his brother and sister to come home. He

wandered out onto the patio, climbed up on a chair, and chanted, "A-a-a-a-a-lex.

E-l-l-l-l-l-la. A-a-a-a-a-a-lex. E-l-l-l-l-l-l-la." It was a long morning for him.

We may have hurried to the playground, but getting

to Ella's school was a different story.  Joey meandered,

wandered, dawdled, and finally dropped on all fours and

crawled, announcing proudly "Look! I turtle!"

I mentioned a while back that a local expatriot mom was posting on a message board, looking for friends for her three kiddos, and she'd gathered several interested families.  Today she'd scheduled a park date for us all, and was planning on making quite a party of it, complete with potato sack races and face painting and balloon stomps.

Unfortunately, most of that happened before Ella got out of school, but the boys and I picked her up when the bell rang and we scurried along to catch up with everyone.

A month ago, Ella would tell me, almost nightly, how starved she was for companionship (her word). How she would give everything she owned to hear just one word of English.  Just one.  When I told her about this event was being planned, she was over the moon.

But that was several weeks ago, and since she's made friends with nochElla, it seems a persistent void has been filled.  So much so that, when we got to the playground, she was immediately distracted by the equipment, heading straight for the seesaw.  I went over and said hello to the moms, who were settled across the field from the playground, but none of my kids followed: when I looked over at them, all three were piled onto the seesaw with a little Swiss kid on the other side, laughing wildly. For no less than twenty minutes.

When the little boy finally needed a break, he hopped off an ran to his mom for a drink, and Joey and Alex scattered for the sandbox.  I asked Ella if she wanted to go join the English-speaking gathering, and she shrugged: "Not really. I already found a really nice friend." And she hopped over to him and asked, "Möchtest du spielen?"  Do you want to play?

He was to busy gulping, but his mom looked at Ella gently and asked, "Und wie heißt du?" And what's your name?

Oh, oh, she knew this one! Ella stood up a little straighter. "Mein Name is Elizabeth. Ich bin 8 Jahre alt."

The woman smiled a little. "Sprichts du English?" You speak English?

Ella's head dropped a little. "Ja," she admitted.  Darn it. Caught.

"Und du sprichts Deutsch." And you speak German.

And back came Ella's grin. "Nur ein bisschen," she admitted. Only a little. Eager to quit while she was ahead, she beckoned her friend of the moment, and the two of them dashed off for Round Two on the seesaw.

Well. Knock me over with a feather.

Since the only kid who might have been about Ella's age left quite soon after we arrived, it was really just as well that Ella found her playmates elsewhere. And since Friday is movie and pizza night for us, we happily lingered, enjoying the late sunlight and the 70-degree weather.

Alex, too, had eagerly looked forward to this day, and, before we left, he carefully wrapped up a 10-cent piece, telling me, "Mommy, I really want to give away at the end of the day to my favorite friend."

He'd brought a ball playing with some little British and Swiss boys: soccer, of course, transcends all language barriers.  Ella and her friend eventually joining in the game as well.

Just when it was about time to leave, Ella came running up to me. "Mom, mom, I don't know why, but Alex just gave me 10 cents! Do you think it's okay if I keep it?"