It Goes So Fast!

Dennis and I were talking this evening about how quickly the days are passing. Looking at the calendar, we have less than seven weeks in our apartment, and those weeks are disappearing at an alarming rate.  I'm sure that part of it has to do with how busy we are, and I think it might also be in part because the kids have all been particularly cheerful lately...but it's probably mostly because the days really are so short: we're down to about eleven hours of daylight.

Whatever the reason, I'm finding myself grasping at my minutes, trying to account for them, as they fly away.

6:54
I wake up to find Ella and Alex curled up in the office, Alex halfway into a watercolor masterpiece  and Ella curled up on the carpet, deep into her book of fairy stories. I love mornings like this. We continue to ease into the morning, me reading stories to the kids while they ate their cereal (Ella and Joey) and leftover spaghetti (Alex, for some reason).

7:50
Dennis leaves to walk the children to school.

7:59
Joey and I follow Dennis out the door, planning to meet him at the train station and join him at work for breakfast.  As we walk, Joey giggles at all of the men in suits and women in heels, making mad dashes to the train station to catch the 8:00 S10 to the Haupbahnhof. The Swiss make a big thing about their punctuality, but perhaps it is a trait of a previous generation? And that is lucky for us: watching people run to the train station is our favorite morning pastime. Joey and I specialize in Schadenfreude.

8:30
Joey and I dive into a breakfast at Google.  As I work my way through my bowl of creamy porridge, I try to work up the courage to impose on the chefs, to ask them how they make a simple bowl of oatmeal taste so divine.  Not this time.

9:38
Joey and I board our train to Kilchburg. While Swiss people may run late, their trains are perfect.

9:58
Arrive at the Lindt Factory, which is surrounded by a scent cloud of chocolate. When the door are flung open precisely at 10:00 (because stores are dependable, too), we start throwing things into our shopping cart with abandon. Christmas is going to be so delicious this year.

While we're walking around the store, Joey pleads at me with big blue eyes to buy him a chocolate bear. My Uncle commissioned me to purchase Joey a chocolate treat for his birthday, so I hand him one, and he clutches the bear as we walk around the store, helping it walk across the shelves. He gives it a very bear-like voice and has it greet all of the unlucky bears and santas and angels, the ones who don't have the privilege of ending up in my son's stomach.

10:24.30
We exit the factory and cross the street to the bus stop, where I discover that the twice-hourly bus is due to arrive in thirty seconds.  Few things give as much pleasure as a perfect connection.

10:25
Joey begins eating Mr. Bear, starting with his ear, continuing to his neck, and petering out somewhere around his belly button.  Giggling and chocolate smeared, he attempts to stand on his head while still in his stroller.

11:00
We arrive home, where I try to clean up the morning's mess: the breakfast dishes, the laundry, and Joey's chocolate-smudged cheeks.

11:35
The doorbell rings, and on my doorstep is a older gentleman holding a skeleton key to all of the locks in the building, and wearing a puzzled expression. His English was nonexistant, and my German is poor;  he tried a third language that I couldn't even identify. From what I could gather, he needed to access a drainage gate through my neighbor's storage room.  The best I could give him was their name, but after I flounder, trying to help him, for twenty minutes, he grows interested in me.

"Where do you come from?" he asks, and I tell him I am American. "You don't come from Yugoslavia?" he asks, "I think you must. I do." And, as a matter of fact, my Grandfather's parents immigrated from thereabouts, and it's not the first time a person from that region has recognized me as their own: even some school-aged children from Serbia once told me "But you look like us!" (More of my great-grandparents have their roots in Germany, but I've certainly never been mistaken for a German.) I think the man tries to to tell me it's my eyes that give me away.  Whatever it is, I find the sentiment charming. I guess I've been an Outlander too long: it's nice having someone want to claim me.

12:05
Alex clambored over the patio railing, drawings in hand, and immediately runs to join Joey, who has a deck of cards spread out.  He calls out, "What's for lunch, mom?"  I have no idea, and it occurs to me that perhaps I should have gone to the grocery store instead of the chocolate factory.

12:10
Ella bursts into the front door, announcing that she, too, is starving, and immediately sits down at the table to start her homework while she waits for lunch.  She's trained!

13:20
After a flurry of waffles and lunchtime stories and helping Ella with homework, I shoo the kids back out the door, Alex for the second half of Kindergarten, and Ella for German tutoring.

14:30
Ella returns home with a story: "Mom, an older boy told Erzhan 'that's a really pretty friend you have there.' and Erzhan told him 'She's not my friend! I hate her!'"  And Ella found the entire exchange hysterical: "Ohhh, boys absolutely hate it when they're accused of having a girlfriend! It was so funny! And that other boy said I was pretty!"

15:30
Alex returns home, looking exhausted.  Since Ella's long since finished her homework, I suggest putting on a movie from the library, and within six seconds, the kids are lined up on the couch.

16:30
Suddenly realizing I that nothing nourishing and delicious has magically appeared in my refrigerator since lunchtime, I phone Dennis, asking if he could possibly pick up food on the way home.  I haven't had any Asian take-away of any sort since beginning of August. We've been catching up on Castle lately, and it seems that in every episode, someone in the police force is eating noodles out of a paper carton, torturing me slowly. And it certainly doesn't help when my friend Kurt mails me photos of my favorite Kirkland Thai restaurant.

17:26
Dennis appears with two bags of food, claiming a small plate for himself while the boys and I eat the rest of it greedily.  Joey punctuates every single bite with an enthusiastic "Mmmm!" and even eats a good part of the cilantro garnish, trying to prolong the decadent meal. Man, that was good.

18:00
Alex and I run out the door, ice skates in a bag over our shoulder. Alex is awed by the darkening sky, and clearly feels very grown up to be leaving the house on an adventure at such an advanced hour.  As we walk down the street, he tries to teach me some of his "secret" language, and tells me a little Swiss German poem about a kitten. Or so he tells me.

18:10
Alex panics and contemplates tears when I tell him I brought no money to rent him a walker, and that this time we can just hold hands.  But he decides skating is more fun than crying, especially when we realize we only have to share the rink with three other kids.  We make a game of trying to skate along the hockey lines, with Alex growing increasingly confident.  But he misses the convenience of being able to lounge on his Laufer whenever the fancy strikes.

19:00
Alex beholds the wonder that is the Zamboni.  It might be the best thing he's ever seen.

19:10
Skating deteriorates into Alex doing an impression of a caterpillar, laughing uncontrollably as he scooches around on the ice on his tummy.  I calculate that I have about ten minutes before euporia dissolves into exhaustion, and I decide it's time to go home.

19:30 

Washed and dressed for bed, Ella and Alex cluster on the floor around Dennis. (Joey is fast asleep.)  Dennis walks us all through the rules of the game Susannah gave us, the Sechseläuten-themed Fang de Böögg.  It turns out to be a pretty excellent board game, especially since the rules demanded that, at any given time, one of us had to wear a silly paper hat.  Alex and I were on a team together, and he decided that, for his half of the partnership, he would be our official hat-wearer.

The game had us chasing a snowman around different landmarks of Zürich (which makes perfect sense: trust me), and I find myself springing up several times to look up an unfamiliar place. I don't think we could possibly have been more aggressive about exploring Zürich, but there's so much we haven't seen, haven't even heard of.

You see, no matter carefully I try to account for my minutes, I just can't find enough of them.