nichtszusagen

• Still catching up here, but I think I pretty much covered all the major events of our trip to the States.
  
  
• Leaving was very hard, which we'd expected. But if I had to compare, it wasn't quite as difficult as leaving Dagny four years earlier, for a couple of reasons--the big one being that we'd done this once before. We felt a little better prepared this time, since we'd spent an entire month doing nothing but preparing to leave. And while Dagny had a large support group of friends and her friends' families, Curran has Dagny. And Dagny's a rock. She may be a drama queen, but underneath it, she's as solid as they come. (Crap! I'm bawling again. I thought I was done doing that!) They get along so much better now that they're both grownups. (We've all observed that the early teen years are the hardest on our kids' sibling relationships.)
  
  
• Even better was the fact that spending an entire month together brought us all even closer. We tend to be a pretty close family anyway, but there wasn't the feeling of things left unsaid when we left. And the driving lessons really cemented Carl & Curran's relationship. They'd been having the usual teenage son/father conflicts before the summer, which I gleefully pointed out weren't any different from those I'd had with Dagny, but the car is a great place for talking, and trusting each other.
  
  
• It was hardest on Camden, of course, but true to his nature, he set up a joke-filled treasure hunt for his siblings to follow after we left. They reported alternately laughing and crying as they followed it.
  
  
• Okay, enough of this. It's getting hard to see the computer screen.
  
  
• Back to Germany. The flight was endless, of course, though again, so much nicer than the United/Lufthansa flight that brought us over in 2004. Plenty of movies to choose from, so I only read one book on the plane. We'd arranged a shuttle service to take us back home, though they could only drop us off at the gate. We'd left Moby in the commissary parking lot next to the gate, so it was fairly painless.
  
  
• Before we'd gone on our trip, we'd met a few of our new neighbors. Several had made a point of stopping by and welcoming us to the neighborhood, bringing things like a fruit bowl and banana bread, which were greatly appreciated.
  
  
• Shortly after we returned, there was a neighborhood picnic. We live on a boulevard...hmmm. I thought this was the name for a divided road with a landscaped median, and Merriam-Webster sort of agrees, but Wikipedia doesn't. Whatever. Our road is divided and has a wide island in the middle with grass and trees. The widest part is by our house, and that's where the picnic was held. Just step out the door and it's there. Everyone was very friendly, and though we were a little overwhelmed due to the jet lag, it was very nice. There were sign-up sheets for a lot of things, but I limited myself to the Book Club (big surprise there, right?)
  
  
• Carl had to start his new job the day after we got back, and it was painful. Particularly so since his boss was gone, dropping his son off in the States for college, and the Russia/Georgia conflict had just started. We hadn't even been watching the news the past couple days, so Carl was completely at a loss when he started getting urgent calls for meetings. He had to run downstairs and buy a Stars & Stripes to find out what was going on. So those first couple of weeks, Carl was in the office, in meetings until late at night--curse of being a senior officer at a headquarters.
  
  
• It took us forever to get over jet lag. Carl had to get up early every morning, but he still couldn't get to sleep at night, so he mostly slept on the weekends. Camden and I tried to get up earlier every day, but no matter how tired we got, falling asleep at night was impossible. We didn't get adjusted to the time difference until school started.
  
  
• One other part of coming back was pretty sad: while we were gone, Carl's mom's dog Jenny died. She'd been 13 years old, a very sweet-natured Wolfspitz, but she was obese and had had arthritis for a few years. Lately, she'd been developing other problems related to her immobility--she couldn't reach to lick herself clean, and she couldn't move around much, so **** don't read unless you have a strong stomach **** her rectum became completely infested with maggots **** She'd been sick when we'd moved from Miesau to Heidelberg, so we kept Diva with us, but she'd been feeling better before our trip, so Diva stayed with Carl's mom. Which turned out to be a good thing--Diva kept them occupied after Jenny's death. So much so that they were reluctant to give her back.
  
  
• We all met at Carl's brother's house to pick up Diva. It was a nice time, as always, though their dog bit Diva on the nose--Nellie's a big dog, and she really dislikes small, hyper dogs, which Diva is when she's around people other than family. At home, she's lazy.
  
  
• Most of the rest of that time was a blur. There was a new student orientation at Camden's school, which was nice. And thank goodness this middle school has lockers, since Camden has a 20-minute walk. His old middle school didn't have lockers, because, they said, kids wasted too much time with them. Huh? So much better to have kids dragging their coats, backpacks, musical instruments, and lunches with them to every class?
  
  
• The schedule at this school is different from the old school, which has turned into a bit of a problem. At the old school, there were A days and B days--you had half your classes each day. Here, they have all the classes every day except for electives (Camden has band and German 1). Which means he has twice the homework. Instead of getting, say, math homework every other day, he gets it daily. And it's not half as much each time. He's been spending a minimum of two hours a day on homework, usually more like three, and that doesn't count his clarinet practicing. He's had to quit the after school astronomy club because he's too busy, and he's doubting he'll be able to play any sports this year. Other parents have reported their 8th-graders are getting 4 hours of sleep a night because of the amount of homework, when they play sports as well.
  
  
• I'm very frustrated by this. Camden's gone from an A-student who enjoys school to an A & B student who's miserable and dreads going to school. I really do not understand the purpose of this. Why do they want kids to hate school and be too tired to actually learn anything? What ever happened to the idea of a well-rounded life? We've even had to cancel our weekly dinner out nights because Camden never has time.
  
  The school, on the other hand, is proud of the workload, seeming to think it makes them a better school. I'm seriously unconvinced. My three kids have been to five different middle schools and two different high schools. None of them has ever had this much homework, and the other schools got the highest scores on school ratings. ARRRRGGGHHH. It's so painful to tell a kid who's always been proud of his grades that it's okay to lower his standards because grades aren't worth him being a bundle of nerves, or getting sick from lack of sleep.
  
  I'm hoping with time we'll be able to get a better handle on what he needs to concentrate on and what he can do just the minimum to meet the standard.
  
  
• On to a more cheerful subject: Carl's mom got a new dog from an animal shelter: a mixed breed from Romania they named Suska: . She's kind of goofy-looking, but she's extremely affectionate and good-tempered... with people. She tends to be aggressive with other dogs. I'm glad for them--they needed a dog to keep them busy, though selfishly I wish they'd gotten a smaller dog, because I suspect now we're going to have to find someone else to watch Diva when we go on vacation.
  
  
• We're settling in to a routine here. I love the house. The bedrooms are smallish, and I've got to exercise in the living room now instead of the bedroom, but it's working. Two of the bedrooms upstairs are tiny, but since Dagny and Curran will only be spending a few weeks a year in them, it's not a problem. I have a completely separate room--the "maid's room"--off the kitchen for my computer room/library, which is lovely. And there's a big laundry room and what will be the train room in the basement (we have a basement!), which we're going to miss terribly once we leave.
  
  
• I've been to two book club meetings so far. The first one was a little intimidating. The hostess had moved here the same time we did, and her house looked... they'd painted the walls, and everything matched everything else and looked like pictures from a decorating magazine. We chose books--quite a few of them Oprah picks, which had me wincing, but after all, I wanted to expand my horizons--and I just smiled and nodded a lot.
  
  This Wednesday was our second meeting. Much more comfortable. I'd already met everyone, so that was easier, and this hostess had kids and a dog, so this house was less picture-perfect.
  
  The problem was, I'd thought I'd be smart and order the first book from BOMC2 for $9.95 instead of paying the $23 at the PX. But it didn't get here in time. It still isn't here. And it wasn't available at the library. Finally, on Tuesday, it occurred to me that I could get the ebook. But by the time I recharged my e-reader, loaded the software on my laptop (my desktop has some persistent adware infecting it and I haven't had the time to follow the instructions from Carl's IT-guru to fix it), found and downloaded the book (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski), it was time to make dinner. Between reading Tuesday night until I fell asleep, then reading from the time Camden left for school and the time I had to leave for the meeting, I got about half of it done. *sigh*
  
  But I think I faked it pretty well. I wasn't the only one who hadn't quite finished it yet, so that was good. I actually contributed to the discussion, and it was a nice time.
  
  
• I got everything unpacked and settled enough for Carl's brother and his family to come visit two weeks ago. Our nieces were looking forward to going bowling, as was Camden, so after we gave them the tour of the house (they were impressed), we all walked over to the bowling alley and bowled three games. I sucked, but then I expected that. I think I went bowling once when I was about Camden's age, which is part of the reason. The other part is that sports with balls (not that kind of balls--get your mind out of the gutter!) and I do not mix.
  
  
• I've gotten into a routine, which really helps, and I'm not too stressed about the house. Yesterday I finally got the curtain made for the front door, which involved cleaning and oiling the sewing machine first. I alternate days with the type of housework I do--changing sheets and towels, cleaning bathrooms, yard work (which right now means raking leaves--we've got 4 or 5 trees in our yard), sewing/mending, cleaning the kitchen, dusting/vacuuming, and organizing--and have a time limit, so when the time's up, that's it for the week. A little OCD, but it makes me feel less overwhelmed.
  
  
• Thursday I had my first gynecologist appointment since before Camden was born (he's 14 now). I was so nervous, my blood pressure was 156/100, which was a little shocking. I needn't have worried. It was quick and painless, though the nurse seemed really worried about me. She was a sweetheart. I've got an appointment for my first mammogram next Thursday. I've heard horror stories. I can't wait.
  
  
• We've also started a tradition of going somewhere on the weekends. Last weekend it was the Königstuhl; the weekend before it was a town between here and Carl's mom's with 4 castles (I can't remember the name). This weekend, it's another castle, and I've got to get going. I'll try to remember to take the camera along this time.

Labels: about me, weekend update

// posted by Darla @ 10/25/2008 10:57:00 AM