Summertime (= daylight saving)
We already went back to summertime last weekend. So for two weeks the time difference is only eight hours to you, living in Germany, Norway, which is quite practicle for phone calls during the week :-).
Besides timewise Theda and Jonte decided to have summer now, too. They have been pulling out there shorts and T-Shirts and try to convince us to go barefoot in their shoes. Being in the US, it is sometimes hard to reason because they saw and see kids running with shorts almost in every weather. Even during our coldest week in Seattle (-5 degrees Celsius), you could see kids in dresses (without nylons), without jackets, without hads. So having temperatures around 12 - 16 degrees Celsius - it must be time to go in shorts now!
Due to the mild weather, we have been spending a lot of time in our yard, preparing it for spring. Sunke prepared our second raised bed, which we had used as compost during the winter. We bought some more plants last weekend e.g. blueberries, strawberries. We seeded peas outside and tomatoes, avocado and watermelon inside (to put outside later). We also have been harvesting our winter salad and our raddishes. The broccoli looks like broccoli now, but needs to grow bigger yet to feed us.
We also semi-finished the project of building a sandbox. It can be used now - only a board to sit on is missing yet. I opened the first package of sand yesterday and all three kids were absolutely lost in playing for probably an hour - magic!! Unfortunately the sand is very greyish-dirtlike - but they seem not to have nice smooth yellow sand. If they have sandboxes on the playgrounds here (usually they have wooden chips), you only find this grey sand - well, I guess we can live with it. The kids don't mind.
Preschool
... has been very exciting the past two months. They had a field trip to the Seattle Zoo. Another time they took a bus ride downtown to the International District and visited a Japanese supermarket "Uwajimaya" - I have been there and it is worth seeing: Little Japan in the middle of Seattle.
They celebrated Chinese New Year, learning about lion dancers and all the traditions associated with it (so did we). At the same day, they also celebrated Valentines Day. It must be a tradition at preschools and schools to send every class mate a Valentines card. So did we. I learned about the tradition two days before the Valentines Party. So we were busy creating 20 cards. So at the Valentines/ Chinese New Years Party each child had an individual mail box (which they had made during that week). The kids were busy putting their cards into twenty different boxes. The most exciting, of course, was to take the boxes home. Theda and Jonte were totally lost in all the mail (and candy and tatoo pictures) they got. (And these forty cards are still flying around in our house.) At the party itself it was a crazy mixture of cultures. The food was Chinese Stir Fry. Everything in the classroom was decorated with hearts. And my favourite activity (which I was responsible for): decorating chinese take-away paper containers with valentines stickers and putting chinese fortune cookies inside. No wonder that Theda and Jonte were totally confused about these two holidays and kept mixing up Chinese New Year and Valentines traditions, since both holidays were completely new to them.
... and this week has been similar exciting. On Wednesday they celebrated the Irish St. Patrick's Day, wearing something green to school, having a baked potato potluck, going on a snake hunt, getting St. Patrick's Day face paintings and do other fun things. And today was Pyjama day. Theda and Jonte could first not believe: Wearing their pyjamas to preschool?!? At the end of the day, they were sure: it was great to wear their pyjamas to school! They even played with it on the playground all afternoon! (Welcome in America!) Another highlight was a family bringing their fairly big snake to the preschool playground. The kids could touch and even hold the snake - even Theda did! I watched with some distance ;-). I hope to get the picture of it soon.
Other than that Theda and Jonte have been very excited about being a "super star". Every child has a super star week which means during that week they can bring something from home to share with the other kids. At the end of each day in circle time, they get to show their favourite item. They can talk about it and then they can pick three kids to give comments or compliments. It is really special for them. Jonte already had his week at the end of February. Theda will be super star next week.
Another thing I have been enjoying and learning from are the parent meetings and the parent education sessions. We all went to a talk about Sibling rivalry held by Vicki Smolke. For those of you interested, you can download the handouts here:
http://coops.northseattle.edu/index.html
That is by the way also the homepage of the Coop-System in general. Just in case someone is interested and has time to screw around ;-). Is there anybody having time???
There are only two more months of preschool left ... and I am already a little sad. The program will end at the end of May. There will be no school until September. And since these programs are designed for a one-year participation only, I have been busy to figure out, what we will do next year. Theda and Jonte could go back into the same program with the same teacher, but all the other kids would be gone (most of the 5 year olds will start what they call "Kindergarten" at the Public School - one year of preschool in the German sense, and others join other programs). So I have been looking for alternatives. We'll see what we end up doing.
Narne
... had not the greatest first birthday. He was sick and felt miserable, he missed his father being gone to a conference and we all were glad when the day was finally over (not to say when the week was over and Sunke came back from the conference). Though Theda and Jonte were extremely excited about his birthday and made him a birthday crown and a woven paper "cloth". It was really important to them to give him something for his birthday.
Other than that he has become very active. I am amazed by how much he is trying to copy from his older siblings - often little details. He loves to make Theda and Jonte laugh and is waiting for their reaction. He loves to play with balls, all kinds of balls, throwing, rolling - he just loves it. By now he climbs up everywhere - you can't leave him out of sight for a second - because he is quick. He wants to get everything and if it does not work out the way he had planned, he can be quite upset. I would say the fun, but exhausting second year has just begun!
Anne
Sunke had already written in his last blog: Our first German visitor was here! It was great to have my "little" sister Anne here, who spontanously decided to come over for two weeks. It was a great chance to finally see and do some of the things we hadn't done so far. E.g. we went up the Space Needle - a tower built for the world exhibition in 1962. We had great weather and therefore a fantastic view. Since we had a double ticket, Anne and I went back at night. Due to Anne's love to shopping, we found some very nice shops.
Spaceneedle
at Carkeek Park Beach facing Puget Sound
Saying "Good Bye" at the airport
Katrintime
A mother in preschool initiated a book club and I joined. We meet about every 4 to 6 weeks and it is a lot of fun, at least the last meeting was. The first book we read (I am still reading) was "Sputnik Sweetheart" by Haruki Murakami. The next book we are reading is "American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld. Just in case you sometimes don't know what to read :-).
Through a friend I started to go to the YMCA, who has sport facilities including a nice swimming pool. They offer a bunch of classes like yoga, pilates ... and ZUMBA - dancing to Latin American Music as workout! I tried it twice now and it is a lot of fun.
Kindermund des Tages
Katrin: Theda, vielleicht schneide ich morgen deine Haare.
Theda: Nein, ich schneide dir deine Haare.
Katrin zu Jonte: Oh, oh - wie das wohl aussehen wird?
Jonte: Ganz cool!!
Katrin zu Theda: Wie moechtest du denn meine Haare schneiden?
Theda: So wie Jontes Haare.
Jonte: Dann haengen sie dir nicht mehr im Gesicht. Ich mache das mit der Nagelschere. Dann bin ich ganz schnell fertig.
I plan to upload some pictures during the next days. It is just too late now. Have to get some sleep. Have a great weekend!
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