Miscellaneous Mittwoch

Today was gorgeous - close to too warm. It was also one of those days when I wasn't successful at getting the schedules of the five Jorgensens at home to match up. When I wanted to do dishes, Isaac wanted to be fed. When Isaac wanted to sleep, Sam and Katie wanted to play soccer in the bedroom. When Grace was supposed to nap, she wouldn't cooperate. Finally, I gave up and let Gracie go napless, woke up Isaac from his too-long nap (which will probably mean it'll be a tough night for me) and took the kids on some errands so we could enjoy the nice weather. Gracie pays the price for stubbornly not taking an early afternoon nap in her bed. Using the dangerous power of information on the internet, I have diagnosed Grace with a mild case of German measles. I started thinking about all her symptoms and they reminded me of what I recalled about the measles.

Sure enough, she has the symptoms for German measles, from top to bottom. Of course, I'm only one of those Ph.D. doctors, so I'm probably wrong. The important thing is that she seems to be on the upswing. Her runny nose is slowly slowing down, and her formerly red spotted rash has faded to brown dots. We're keeping a close eye on her for any of the rare complications. And now she'll have a fun story to tell about how she got a geographically authentic case of German measles. Katie on the path to the strawberry stand just behind our building. There are tons of rose bushes outside our apartment building, and Katie can't resist picking them. No nasty thorn pricks yet.

Had a lovely chat with a mom at the school playground (that natural playground) this afternoon. I'm a bit of a magnet for people who want to practice their English. When other parents hear me talking to the kids, they kind of sidle over and usually start the conversation with, "My English is not very good, but ..." Anyway, this mom was telling me about how much she loves the school. Her son is six, and last month his entire class of sixteen kids took a two night trip away from home to a nearby retreat center. With one teacher. I was awed by so many aspects of that.

I am seeing more and more that Germans trust their children with more responsibility and higher expectations. For example the school playground is not surrounded by a fence - the kids could disappear at any moment through one of the many paths through the hedge and in 2 minutes be at the Stadtbahn stop. Nevertheless, the school kids play outside unsupervised and just come in when their teacher calls them from the classroom door. Another example - many kids here as young as 2 or 3 ride two wheel bikes with no training wheels.

The brothers. This evening after work, Dave took the three oldest kids to the market while I went downtown with Isaac to try to find a shirt for Dave. This weekend is predicted to be super hot, and he only brought one button-down short sleeve shirt. (Dave planned on going shopping for the shirt but I offered... okay, I jumped at the chance to wander around a bit without my usual entourage.)

After several forays into the shopping area in downtown Bielefeld, I have always been disappointed by the experience. Prior to today, I always chalked it up to having four little ones to tend to while trying to simultaneously shop, but today it was just me and Isaac, and still the same impression. I did come home with a shirt as requested (short sleeves, light color, 100% cotton) but the size isn't right. So I'll get another shot at it tomorrow, this time with the whole crew. We'll see if I'm able to communicate in German well enough to do an exchange. On the plus side, I had a delish plum kuchen while shopping.

Katie modelling her Mary Tyler Moore dress. Katie has decided that she too loves quark. And Sam stepped out of his vanilla rut and ordered the mysterious neon blue-colored ice cream. Turns out it tastes like candy. Sometimes it pays to be adventurous.