Hausaufgaben, part 2

Monday brought us rain, buckets of it.  I'm glad that we had our sunshine on the weekend, but an early-morning rain storm just made returning to the grind that much harder.

I think I dread the weekly return to school every bit as much as Ella usually does: I get no joy from watching her struggle through all of her homework in the afternoons. Except this morning the kids surprised me.  They were both in wonderful moods this morning, despite the return to the morning routine.

As they were getting their coats and shoes on, I was suiting Joey up as well. We finished off the last of our coffee yesterday, and not even rain will keep me away from my Sumatra.  Joey gets no say in the matter.  I was planning on walking the kids to school...but before I could get Joey's shoes on, I heard Ella chirp to Alex, "Okay, are you ready? Let's go!" The door was closing as I looked up, and I watched their little hoods bob, side by side, as they ran up the sidewalk.

What a difference few months make.

So Joey and I made our own way to the store, he importantly clutching his little umbrella, giving me a running commentary on how wet it was.  The trams were packed, as they always are when the weather gets bad, and Joe was indignant that the grownups were taking up all of the seats. But Starbucks was only a few stops down.

We squeezed in a trip to the grocery store as well.  I love how Joey knows his routine at the store, running to the shopping carts and asking "money please."

Allow Joey to demonstrate.

The shopping carts at the Co-op all have
a magnifying glass attached.  My little
goofball  asked me to take this picture,
and he laughed  hysterically when I
showed it to him. Whatever makes it fun.

Shopping carts here are connected by keyed chains: you can only release one cart from the others by inserting a franc, which pushes out the key and frees the cart.  It's a great way to encourage everyone to returns carts--you can only get your coin back by reinserting the key--but, embarrassingly, when I first got here, it took me a couple of weeks to figure out the system.  I thought the chained-together carts were ones that were out of use.  I cringingly remember asking people who were unloading their carts, "Um, kann Ich habe das, bitte?" confused by their looks of surprise and, sometimes, annoyance. But we know what we're doing now, and Joey's made it his job to free our cart each morning.

We spent the rest of the morning at home, and when Ella and Alex joined us, I was happily surprised and to see that their good moods persisted.  Ella ran right to her desk and started on her homework.  She'd received another punishment page, this time for neglecting to shake the teacher's hand and wish her a good morning when she got to school "and I waited for her for a long time to shake her hand, but she was busy, so eventually I just sat down.  I didn't realize I could get in trouble for not shaking a hand!"

More than anything else, I think, this year, Ella is learning to roll with the punches.  At first she was really worried that I'd be angry with her for getting in trouble, but as soon as I realized that of course I'm not going to be mad at her for not understanding the rules, she started to see the humor in her situation, and writes her little paragraphs with rueful acceptance.

I really am proud of how she's adapting, doing her best to pay attention, and especially watching the other kids in the class to try to figure out her assignments. Today she noticed that everyone was only doing half of their math book page, so she did the same.  But the board assignment listed the whole page. "Huh," said Ella, "Well, I guess I'd better do the whole page, just in case.  I don't want to get in trouble...again!"

In addition to her math and her punishment page and reviewing her times tables, Ella was supposed to draw a family tree today. She was really excited about doing it, and wanted to extend the tree to her great grandparents, thrilled when she discovered the origins of my three kids' middle names.  But no Geels or Eisterhold will be surprised to hear that there just wasn't room on the paper for Daddy's extended family, so Ella kept it simple. But still she spent ages on it...in all she spent about four hours on homework today.  That's really not okay.

While Ella was working, Joey and Alex watched Sesame Street and played with their scooters, and then Alex got it into his head that he really wanted to buy candy all by himself.  "I know I can do it, mom. Please please please please?" It clearly meant a lot to him to keep up with his sister, so I peered out the window and watched him look both ways two times as he ran up to the store.  And he came home, triumphant, dangling two gummy worms.

When Ella finally finished her work, she joined me and the boys as we decorated Easter Eggs.  But nothing is a simple project with her. She eyed us for a moment and then snapped her fingers: "I'm going to make the golden Easter egg hunt of the ages!  I'll make a clue for each egg, leading to the next egg. It'll keep the boys busy. Can I have eighteen eggs, mom?"

It kept her busy, too.

I wanted to get the kids outside a little, so after dinner I gave the kids some ping pong paddles I'd picked up for them a couple of weeks ago.  Two of the nearest playgrounds have built-in ping pong tables, so I thought it would be fun for them to be able to play with each other.  They didn't even bother going to the playgrounds, however, happily batting their balls around the courtyard.  (Dan, as soon as Alex saw his paddle, he asked me excitedly "Do you think Grandpa will play with me when he comes? I can't wait!)

I got a paddle for Joey as well, as I knew he'd be grievously offended if I didn't, but instead he was grievously frustrated at not being able to hit his ball.  "NOT WORKING," he yelled, glaring at his disobedient paddle.

"Not working" is his go-to phrase whenever he's frustrated.  One night he fell out of bed, and when I rushed in there, having heard his thump, I found him sitting sadly on the floor, rubbing his head, whimpering "not working."

The kids eventually drifted away from their ping pong, Ella back in side to work on the golden Easter egg hunt of the ages, Joey to sulk, and Alex to the back of our building, where he found another little boy to play with. The little guy was younger than Alex, maybe just barely four, but he was all alone.  He seemed to have the situation well in hand, however, and he and Alex had a blast playing silently (except for laughter).

Apparently the complex is going to put in some playground equipment behind the building for us; already, there's this structure, which I took to be a fountain, but there's a sand pit in the middle, and the kids were having a great time playing with it, filling the trough with sand and then emptying it out again.  For all I know, it's meant to be a water toy for the kids.

Shopping carts, playgrounds, classroom etiquette: we Geelses are doing our best not to bumble too much.