These are a few of my favorite things

Usually, at noon, I perch outside on the patio with my mug of coffee, watching to see the kids come home.  At the beginning of our time here, Alex would always come home in a brisk jog, arriving just a couple of minutes after the noon bell rang.  At one point I asked him why he hurried home so quickly. "Do you know why I run? Because I don't want anyone to try to speak German to me."  Oh, my heart.

But what a difference, now.  He's usually home about fifteen minutes after bell, hanging back to walk with his friends.  And today I watched about ten Kindergartners head toward our building in a jolly clump, swinging arms and bags and singing together.  And there, right in the middle of them all, was Alex, who broke away when he saw me, calling out to his friends, "Ciao ciao! Tschüs!"

He's come such a long way.

I asked Alex what song they were singing. "Oh, it's just a little German song from school." Would he sing it for me.  "Well, no, but do you want to see some special things?"

As always, Alex came home with a new treasure for his stockpile of recycled garbage. I thought, today, I'd share with you a few of the most excellent things that he's brought home from school.

These are today's treasures: on the left, those are tiny potion bottles for "love," happiness," and "Alex superstar." In
the middle is "a shiny beautiful thing." And the thing on the right?

This might be my all-time favorite.  He
brought home an old chip can, filled with
bits of brown cloth that he'd painstakingly
cut up to look like chips.  When I visited
last Friday, he showed me the remnants
of the cloth, with dozens of little holes
cut out.  "Do you want to know the funniest
thing about this special thing, mom? Here,
smell!  See! They smell like real chips
now." They certainly do. Ick.

"Well, momma, this is something that you use if you
only want to see through one eye and you want the
things you see to be very wobbly." Ah. Very useful.

One of many egg cartons he's brought home,
with carefully organized bits and pieces.

An oyster and pearl that Alex made out of a
cheese container.

"It's a rocket ship, or course! See? Zoom!"

A race car track. He's made several more of these for Joey.

A carefully decorated treasure chest

With hundreds of little golden pieces of treasure inside.
Alex had cut apart every single one.

I think this is supposed to be a door hanging: Alex has given me three of these so far.  I think the first was teacher-
directed, but I made such a fuss over it that Alex now keeps asking the teacher if he can make more and more.

Ella looked jealously at Alex's treasures. "Do you know what I brought home? Homework." But she sat right down and got to it, bless her, and a good thing, because she had quite a lot tonight.

For one assignment, she had to color a picture of an otter habitat (otters, still!) and identify thirty or so other animals and otter signs on the picture.   So she and I learned quite a lot of vocabulary this afternoon.  And one, in particular, we'll never forget.

Did you know that "Reh" is the German word for "deer."  When we figured that out, Ella started singing...

"Doe, a deer, a female deer! Reh, a feeeee-male deer!"