Lazy Sunday

I had really great ambitions for the day. Ages ago, I'd read about a cave near Interlaken, St. Beatus's. Each year on the Saint's day, they do a festival, complete with yodeling in the mouth of the cave.  I'm sorry to say that we missed the yodeling--that was months ago.  And by now you must know me well enough to know that I'm not being sarcastic.  I really am sorry!

Anyway, we missed the yodeling, but today the cave was holding a special exhibition for children.  According to legend, St. Beatus banished a terrible dragon who lived in the cave, so there was supposed to be some dragon-y things that I thought might make up for Joey's big disappointment on Pilatus.  It was going to be great! Maybe even possibly worth the 2 1/2 hour train ride to get there!

But this morning I woke up with a heavy head and a sore throat, made the meekest motions of getting out of bed, and then rolled over and went right on back to sleep again. Eventually I woke up to the sound of cartoons in the other room, and then, soon after, Dennis flopped into bed and fell asleep next to me.  I guessed he must not be feeling very well, either, and mentally scratched out our plans for the day, replacing them with movies and steamy cups of tea.

I roused myself at 9:00: Dennis had left me a cup of coffee on the counter, and that, along with the bracing autumn weather blowing through our patio, finally woke me up. The eight o'clock church services usually let out sometime between 9:00 and 9:30, and for that half-hour there is the constant chime of church bells echoing from all over town, through the drizzle and the fog. Beautiful.

Meanwhile, the kids inside were watching a Power Puff Girls marathon and playing Life. After my second cup of coffee, I inflated some balloons for them and tossed them, and the kids, outside.  I told Ella and Alex that, if they could hit the balloon back and forth a hundred times without dropping it, I'd give them one whole M&M each.  I kind of expected them to laugh at me, but Ella only asked if they could each have five M&Ms if they hit the balloon five hundred times. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to get away with this.

So the kids were outside, expending excess energy, and I was back on the patio, waiting for my third cup of coffee to cool, and all was right with the world, when, somehow, Joey tripped on one of the concrete retaining walls in the yard.  I'm not sure I trust my eyes, but I think he actually did a full flip, landing on his face and forehead.  But the time I'd hurtled over the patio railing and ran to him, there was a large knot on his his nose and chin were bleeding.

We kept our eye on Joey, but apart from his bruises and scrapes, he seemed okay. He stopped crying pretty quickly: and, a I was cleaning him up, Joey gave a big sigh: "This is a bummer. A big, big bummer."

Though Joey was okay, I decided that was enough fresh air for him. So I sent Ella and Alex on an acorn-finding mission outside (my buckeyes were looking lonely in their glass bowl) and I pulled out the board games that I'd bought at the thrift shop earlier this week. I passed them over to Dennis for translation, and we got ready for what ended up being a full day of games.

We started with one that I swear I've seen in the states but can't find online anywhere as being printed in English.  It's published by Ravensburger and is called Schmuggler an Bord. It's basically memory game: you're trying to keep track of what booty you've acquired, and also are trying to track what everyone else is holding, as items get exchanged around the board.  The kids learned some new vocabulary: Waffen (guns), Falschgeld (counterfeit money), Schnaps (schnaps)...right. So maybe there's a reason it isn't printed in the United States.

Alex, taking a little art break

At the start of the game, you get to choose some items for your opening hand, and Alex always insisted on choosing all the sparkly things: the Gold, the Diamanten, the Krone. But, even though this made it incredibly easy for everyone to remember what was in Alex's hand, he soundly beat the rest of us twice. It took him the slightest glance to take in what everyone else was holding, and, even though he was busy giggling, I guess he must have been paying attention, too. He always knew where everything was. So today we learned that Alex has a stunning memory. And thank goodness, because apparently mine is rapidly fading. Dennis was the only one who could challenge him.

We also played a game published by the ETH, the Institute of Technology here in Zürich.  It's called Haselwurz und Bärenklau, which are two local wildflowers. In the game, you play a little elf who travels around Switzerland with the help of little animal friends, discovering various endangered plants and animals. Only, as cutesy as that sounds, there's a lot of strategy involved, determining best paths for travel, and there's a lot of science, which is especially neat since this game seems to have been developed with little girls in mind.  (The instructions always talk about "Spielerin," the female for "players": apparently the developers didn't think young men would want to pretend that they're fairyland creatures, flying around on dragonflies.)

Our little Spielerin

So we had this wonderful, cozy day of games: only at dinner did we realizes that there was a flaw in our plan.  The kids were completely stir crazy.  Alex especially: he got to video chat with his friend Kevin this evening, but he could scarcely sit still.  Even though it was getting late, I decided I'd better take the boys outside for some exercise before bedtime.

Meanwhile, Ella stayed in the sanctuary of the home, baking cookies with Dennis.  Only after they'd mixed the batter did they realize that they were out of chocolate chips, which, in this so-called Land of Chocolate, are available in no stores whatsoever.  I did have some drinking chocolate, however, that came in something approximating chips and made for passable cookies.  Ella was satisfied, anyway, and demurely, proudly served us cookies off of a tiny toy cookie sheet when we finally burst in from the cold.

At the end of the day, as they were munching their cookies, all three kids chimed out a "Thank you, Momma, for a wonderful day!" Hearing that, even I'm willing to admit, it was probably even better than visiting a cave.  Yes, even if there'd been yodeling involved.