When we moved to Cyprus in January this year, the only bicycle we brought was
Lukas's. It's a very sturdy beginning bicycle that I bought used for Marie
nearly eight years ago, and Marie, Jacob, and Lukas all learned to ride on it.
(Well, actually Lukas learned to ride on a friend's bike, but perfected his
technique with this one.) Marie's and Jacob's bicycles were both falling apart
and I ran out of time to pack mine and left it with a friend, thinking maybe to
bring it out to Cyprus some time in the future, Jörn doesn't ride a bike, and
Katie and Helen don't, either. I also brought the bike trailer.
I bought the bike trailer when Marie was three months old and used it (in
December, in Germany, no less!) quite a lot for about a month. Then we moved so
that my husband's great-aunt could come to live with us. The combined facts of
having the bicycle and trailer in a very hard-to-get-to place in the cellar, and
not wanting to be gone for longer than necessary from the great-aunt, meant that
I didn't use the trailer again until about three years later, with both Marie
and Jacob, and used it all of once, I think. (Maybe twice?) Then we moved again
and it was much easier to get the bike and trailer out, so I used it once to go
to playgroup, was concerned about how horribly dizzy I got, then found out I was
pregnant with Lukas. Oh, and the last seven and a half years in Germany, we
lived at the top of a very long, very steep street. That meant that going
anywhere was easy, coming home was a pain. So between weather, pregnancies,
great public transportation, being out of the country, and laziness...well, I
used the trailer maybe half a dozen times in all those years. But I still like
the IDEA very much, and where we live in Cyprus is much flatter!
But a bike trailer without a bike isn't much use, so a month or two after
arriving, we bought a (very) used bicycle for me, which turned out to need new
tires (which I didn't get), and a bike for Jacob, which is great--especially as
it was only 10 Euros. Then a couple of months ago we finally got bikes for Marie
and for me. We rode them home, and parked them--it was WAY too hot for me to be
willing to go bike-riding!
This afternoon, though, I realized that the weather is finally perfect, so
pumped up the tires of the bike trailer, put Katie and Helen in it, and the boys
and I went for a short, but glorious, bike ride along the salt lake. (Which,
incidentally, had quite a lot of water in it for several days last week, and
still has a little bit!) Helen looked confused and curious as I buckled her in,
but within about five seconds of starting, she was humming to hear the funny
sound that makes going over bumps. :-) She absolutely loved it. I had a hard
time keeping up with the boys, but blamed it on the 35 or so kilos I was
pulling, not on the mumble-mumble kilos on my saddle.
Yes, there are about four months of the year that it's too hot for ME to be
willing to ride a bike (the boys were riding all summer long), but the public
transportation here is between bad and non-existant, and we only have one car,
and it's basically flat all around here, and it doesn't rain much, sooooo...I
hope that today's bike ride doesn't stay the only one this year! For that
matter, I would like to go for another, longer, ride with all the children
tomorrow, and on Tuesday might even use the bikes "for real", rather than
walking to playgroup. The traffic conditions are a bit scary, so I'm not sure
about that yet. We'll have to see how the "practice" goes tomorrow, especially
with Lukas. Nobody is supposed to ride on the sidewalk, not even children, but
the worst stretch traffic-wise has a really wide sidewalk, and when we walked to
playgroup last week there were hardly any people there, so I'm thinking we might
just ride on the sidewalk and see what happens.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
August 21, 2009: Our latest trip to the emergency room
It's great having friends we can call in the middle of the night, although it
would be nice if we didn't need to call them...
To start with, we've just had a somewhat...challenging...three weeks with a visitor, so I started off the evening last night tired. I do know that I've gotten better and better at packing over the years, all the same, it puzzled me how it could take a single guy about 4 times longer to pack for himself than it takes me to pack for seven people. At the end, despite the fact that he'd taken dozens of stones from the beach here (not entirely sure that that's legal...) and bought hundreds of Euros' worth of clothes (much cheaper here than in Germany, apparently--I wouldn't know, as I don't shop either place...), he was surprised to find that his suitcase was seven kilograms overweight. At 1:15 this morning, as my husband (Jörn) was more than ready to leave for the airport, "G" started going on and on about how they'd be sure to look the other way, etc. and that he was just going to risk it. (On the way here he had six kilos too much and got away with it by saying, "Look, I'm visiting a family with five children who moved to Cyprus seven months ago--they need their chocolate and Haribo!" The lady apparently said, "I shouldn't do this, but..." and let him get away with it. He thinks he charmed her, I think she was tired of listening to him talk. I'm not feeling very charitable, I have to admit.)
But we asked what his plan of action was if they didn't (at 22 Euros per kilo too much, that would be an expensive seven kilos!!), and he was quite surprised to realize that Jörn, who was supposed to work at 7:00 a.m. today, only intended to drop him off at the airport and come back home--not hang around for an hour or so. So G decided to re-pack and leave things here for us to ship to him.
Then just before 1:30, as they (Jörn and G) were about to head out the door, half an hour later than intended, Lukas came into the living room and said sleepily, "Jacob fell out of bed." That was rather surprising, not only as Jacob is ten years old and has never fallen out of bed before , but also because he very rarely sleeps IN bed--he usually sleeps on the floor. I asked if he was crying or bleeding and Lukas said yes to both, so I headed to see what was up--Jörn, the less lazy and more compassionate parent of the two, had already gone to Jacob. I found Jacob sitting on the bathroom floor, Jörn cleaning blood from Jacob's face and trying to locate the source of the bleeding to stop it. Jacob had a gash on his cheek over an inch long. It wasn't until we got to the hospital that we realized that the blood caked all over his eyebrow was not from the same wound, but from a similar gash on his eyebrow.
The thought of G missing his flight just did not bear thinking of, and Jacob was dizzy and there was an awful lot of blood on his bedroom floor and leading to the bathroom, so we didn't want to wait for Jörn to take G to the airport and come back, and even though we temporarily (as of yesterday afternoon) have two cars, we also didn't want to leave sleeping children on their own. (I might have been tempted to if they'd all been asleep--I would have woken up Marie and told her what we were doing--but Lukas was still awake and had started crying again because G was leaving. Having no idea how long I'd be gone, it wouldn't have been a good idea anyway.) So Jörn took G to the aiport in the borrowed car and I called Richard.
Richard answered his phone extremely coherently for 1:30 a.m. and came over right away, and I put Helen (who had been awake since 12:30 and I hadn't even bothered trying to get back to sleep, as she was useful in helping keep me awake until G's departure) and Jacob into our car and drove to the hospital.
The emergency room looked crowded when we walked in, but I quickly realized that all the people there were with only one person, who was already being seen to, and we were taken straight into an examining room. When Jörn and I had taken Lukas to the emergency room in April (while, incidentally, Richard's wife, Sue, babysat the other children), they hadn't let me go with him because of Helen, so being there on my own this time I was prepared to fight to stay with him, but they didn't blink an eye at Helen this time. (Well, actually, they all blinked lots of eyes at Helen, flirting madly with her as she flirted back!!) They discussed back and forth about whether they should stitch or use Steri-Strips (I didn't get a whole lot of the conversation, as it was in Greek, but "Steri-Strips" in Greek is...roll of drums..."Steri-Strips") and finally settled on Steri-Strips.
Jacob was great, squeezing my hand tight and groaning a tiny bit, but holding his head perfectly still, as three people worked on him. We of course were asked how it happened, and I said that Jacob said he fell out of bed and must have landed on Legos or something--who knows, as he has a ten-year-old boy's bedroom. The doctor looked rather skeptical, which made me very uncomfortable, and he examined Jacob all over, also finding two bruises on his leg. Jacob said he was coming down the ladder (his bed is a "captain's bed"--higher than a regular bed, but not by a lot--the ladder only has two rungs) and slipped, and he didn't know what he'd hit. After they'd finished with the Steri-Strips and were filling out a form for getting an x-ray, Jörn arrived. Yes, I CAN manage an emergency run to the hospital on my own (have a bit too much experience as it is), but it's SO much easier with my husband there, too, and I was very glad to see him!
Jacob had the x-ray (he said they took three or four, all of his head), they checked the x-rays and said that he was fine, and we were told to keep him quiet and not to let the wounds get wet for four or five days. The doctor told Jacob no skateboarding or football, that this was a time to sit inside and play computer games, at which Jacob looked insulted and said, "I'll read." (That cracked me up, as he likes computer games at least as much as his mother does and plays even more, but I'm glad he also thought of reading!) Anyway, fun fun--keep him quiet and dry. We've gone to the beach nearly every day for the last three months, and on the evenings we don't go, Jacob plays loud and wild games of hide-and-seek and tag with the neighborhood children. I figure I'll at least catch up on the reading-aloud that I've meant to do but haven't, because Jacob is usually running around outside...
To finish the story, we got home and let Richard go home to his own bed, Jacob went to bed in our bed, and Helen and I went to bed in Katie's bed. (Katie and Marie have a bunk bed with a single bed on top and a double bed underneath. On any given night they might both be on the top, both be on the bottom, or one in each--last night Marie was in the top bunk and Katie was in the bottom.) I first removed a coloring book, several marking pens, three stones, and a spinning top, then there was plenty of room for us. Katie woke up and was very, very pleased to see us in her bed, but Helen was not at all pleased to have Katie's arm around her. Despite the fact that it was 3:00 a.m. I had a hard time falling asleep, not being able to read first, but eventually managed, and the next thing I knew it was 7:15. Jörn had set his alarm for 7:00, so he could call and say he's not going to work this morning and was already back asleep. And now it's time to leave to take the children to the last day of holiday club (VBS for U.S.ians), and Jacob wants to go too, so I'm going to be staying. My bet is that within half an hour, Jacob will decide it's too loud anyway and want to come home.
To start with, we've just had a somewhat...challenging...three weeks with a visitor, so I started off the evening last night tired. I do know that I've gotten better and better at packing over the years, all the same, it puzzled me how it could take a single guy about 4 times longer to pack for himself than it takes me to pack for seven people. At the end, despite the fact that he'd taken dozens of stones from the beach here (not entirely sure that that's legal...) and bought hundreds of Euros' worth of clothes (much cheaper here than in Germany, apparently--I wouldn't know, as I don't shop either place...), he was surprised to find that his suitcase was seven kilograms overweight. At 1:15 this morning, as my husband (Jörn) was more than ready to leave for the airport, "G" started going on and on about how they'd be sure to look the other way, etc. and that he was just going to risk it. (On the way here he had six kilos too much and got away with it by saying, "Look, I'm visiting a family with five children who moved to Cyprus seven months ago--they need their chocolate and Haribo!" The lady apparently said, "I shouldn't do this, but..." and let him get away with it. He thinks he charmed her, I think she was tired of listening to him talk. I'm not feeling very charitable, I have to admit.)
But we asked what his plan of action was if they didn't (at 22 Euros per kilo too much, that would be an expensive seven kilos!!), and he was quite surprised to realize that Jörn, who was supposed to work at 7:00 a.m. today, only intended to drop him off at the airport and come back home--not hang around for an hour or so. So G decided to re-pack and leave things here for us to ship to him.
Then just before 1:30, as they (Jörn and G) were about to head out the door, half an hour later than intended, Lukas came into the living room and said sleepily, "Jacob fell out of bed." That was rather surprising, not only as Jacob is ten years old and has never fallen out of bed before , but also because he very rarely sleeps IN bed--he usually sleeps on the floor. I asked if he was crying or bleeding and Lukas said yes to both, so I headed to see what was up--Jörn, the less lazy and more compassionate parent of the two, had already gone to Jacob. I found Jacob sitting on the bathroom floor, Jörn cleaning blood from Jacob's face and trying to locate the source of the bleeding to stop it. Jacob had a gash on his cheek over an inch long. It wasn't until we got to the hospital that we realized that the blood caked all over his eyebrow was not from the same wound, but from a similar gash on his eyebrow.
The thought of G missing his flight just did not bear thinking of, and Jacob was dizzy and there was an awful lot of blood on his bedroom floor and leading to the bathroom, so we didn't want to wait for Jörn to take G to the airport and come back, and even though we temporarily (as of yesterday afternoon) have two cars, we also didn't want to leave sleeping children on their own. (I might have been tempted to if they'd all been asleep--I would have woken up Marie and told her what we were doing--but Lukas was still awake and had started crying again because G was leaving. Having no idea how long I'd be gone, it wouldn't have been a good idea anyway.) So Jörn took G to the aiport in the borrowed car and I called Richard.
Richard answered his phone extremely coherently for 1:30 a.m. and came over right away, and I put Helen (who had been awake since 12:30 and I hadn't even bothered trying to get back to sleep, as she was useful in helping keep me awake until G's departure) and Jacob into our car and drove to the hospital.
The emergency room looked crowded when we walked in, but I quickly realized that all the people there were with only one person, who was already being seen to, and we were taken straight into an examining room. When Jörn and I had taken Lukas to the emergency room in April (while, incidentally, Richard's wife, Sue, babysat the other children), they hadn't let me go with him because of Helen, so being there on my own this time I was prepared to fight to stay with him, but they didn't blink an eye at Helen this time. (Well, actually, they all blinked lots of eyes at Helen, flirting madly with her as she flirted back!!) They discussed back and forth about whether they should stitch or use Steri-Strips (I didn't get a whole lot of the conversation, as it was in Greek, but "Steri-Strips" in Greek is...roll of drums..."Steri-Strips") and finally settled on Steri-Strips.
Jacob was great, squeezing my hand tight and groaning a tiny bit, but holding his head perfectly still, as three people worked on him. We of course were asked how it happened, and I said that Jacob said he fell out of bed and must have landed on Legos or something--who knows, as he has a ten-year-old boy's bedroom. The doctor looked rather skeptical, which made me very uncomfortable, and he examined Jacob all over, also finding two bruises on his leg. Jacob said he was coming down the ladder (his bed is a "captain's bed"--higher than a regular bed, but not by a lot--the ladder only has two rungs) and slipped, and he didn't know what he'd hit. After they'd finished with the Steri-Strips and were filling out a form for getting an x-ray, Jörn arrived. Yes, I CAN manage an emergency run to the hospital on my own (have a bit too much experience as it is), but it's SO much easier with my husband there, too, and I was very glad to see him!
Jacob had the x-ray (he said they took three or four, all of his head), they checked the x-rays and said that he was fine, and we were told to keep him quiet and not to let the wounds get wet for four or five days. The doctor told Jacob no skateboarding or football, that this was a time to sit inside and play computer games, at which Jacob looked insulted and said, "I'll read." (That cracked me up, as he likes computer games at least as much as his mother does and plays even more, but I'm glad he also thought of reading!) Anyway, fun fun--keep him quiet and dry. We've gone to the beach nearly every day for the last three months, and on the evenings we don't go, Jacob plays loud and wild games of hide-and-seek and tag with the neighborhood children. I figure I'll at least catch up on the reading-aloud that I've meant to do but haven't, because Jacob is usually running around outside...
To finish the story, we got home and let Richard go home to his own bed, Jacob went to bed in our bed, and Helen and I went to bed in Katie's bed. (Katie and Marie have a bunk bed with a single bed on top and a double bed underneath. On any given night they might both be on the top, both be on the bottom, or one in each--last night Marie was in the top bunk and Katie was in the bottom.) I first removed a coloring book, several marking pens, three stones, and a spinning top, then there was plenty of room for us. Katie woke up and was very, very pleased to see us in her bed, but Helen was not at all pleased to have Katie's arm around her. Despite the fact that it was 3:00 a.m. I had a hard time falling asleep, not being able to read first, but eventually managed, and the next thing I knew it was 7:15. Jörn had set his alarm for 7:00, so he could call and say he's not going to work this morning and was already back asleep. And now it's time to leave to take the children to the last day of holiday club (VBS for U.S.ians), and Jacob wants to go too, so I'm going to be staying. My bet is that within half an hour, Jacob will decide it's too loud anyway and want to come home.
Monday, July 27, 2009
July 27, 2009: how to use English good
I've seen various forms of these rules, which totally crack me up. The scary
part for me is how many people don't even get the joke! Anyway, here's one list,
which I found while trying to figure out where the list originated. This
was the best explanation, in my opinion, and below is a partial list.
Enjoy!
Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
Just between you and I, the case of pronoun is important.
Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into English.
Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects.
Don't use no double negatives.
Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers.
Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
A writer must be not shift your point of view.
About sentence fragments.
Don't use run-on sentences you got to punctuate them.
In letters essays and reports use commas to separate items in series.
Don't use commas, which are not necessary.
Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
Its important to use apostrophes right in everybodys writing.
Don't abbrev.
Check to see if you any words out.
In the case of a report, check to see that jargonwise, it's A-OK.
As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.
About repetition, the repetition of a word might be real effective
repetition - take, for instance the repetition of Abraham Lincoln.
In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely
not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does
not really need in order to put his message across.
Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.
It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.
Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.
Consult the dictionery to avoid mispelings.
To ignorantly split an infinitive is a practice to religiously avoid.
Last but not least, lay off cliches.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
July 9, 2009: My beach history
Okay, so I was born in Southern California, in a place called Oceanside,
which is even actually right by the ocean, and we apparently went to the beach
on a regular basis. But I don't remember it at all, and we moved north when I
was 3 1/2 or 4. The first time I actually remember being to the beach was when I
was 12--we went to Disneyland and camped near the beach, and I loved it. As I
recall, it was all stones--no annoying sand. The next time I remember was when I
was 18, went to Disneyland again (this time with my high school graduating
class), and I hated it, but I don't think that had to do with the beach itself,
even though it was sandy, but with the fact that I did NOT want to be on that
trip and had a bad attitude about it the whole time. I'm sure I'd been to the
beach other times during my childhood, but I honestly don't remember them. Mom?
Sibs? Do any of you read my blog?
When I was 18 I went to Mexico for a year, lived six hours from the coast, and went with the youth group to the beach over a weekend, which also happened to be my birthday. Except for getting sunburned after sitting in the back of a pickup truck for six hours, and the campfire where they all sang happy birthday to me and each and every person gave me a hug (I love Latin America!), I don't remember much from that time, either. Is it possible I didn't even go in the water?
I've also been to the beach several times in Costa Rica: once with the group of exchange students when I was there the first time in 1988, once with my host brother and some of his friends (I think in 1993, but not sure), and once with most of the family two years ago. We did have a wonderful time, but the sand was all over the place and irritating. Having the outdoor shower in the house where we stayed was very helpful.
During my 17 1/2 years in Germany we made several day-trips (three-hour drive each way) to the beach in the Netherlands, but the last time was five years ago, and I'd also been to the Baltic Sea a couple of times, the last time 11 years ago.
I shouldn't forget that last year we lived in Muizenberg, South Africa, for four months, literally a five-minute walk from the beach...and I went to the beach a total of three times.
Oh yes, and we spent a couple of days at the beach in Thailand three years ago. I didn't want to be there (at the beach, that is--I loved the eight weeks in Thailand that we spent with the PEOPLE), hating being surrounded by tourists and sand. I annoyed my family and my friends by singing Sandra Boynton's wonderful song, "Tropical Sand." Here's my favorite line from the first verse:
You like the tropical sun and the tropical sea, But hey, mon, Alaska sounds good to me.
Then the brilliant chorus:
I got de sand in my toes and de sand in my nose,
de sand in my ears and de sand in my clothes.
I got de sand in my hair and de sand in my face.
I think I got de sand most everyplace.
And we now live in Cyprus, where the furthest distance from the beach isn't very far, and we live in Larnaca, right on the coast. Without children I could probably walk to the beach in 20 minutes, we can certainly drive there in less than five minutes (parking and getting into and out of the car take longer than the drive), but I DON'T LIKE SAND. People had been telling me since January that we'd be going to the beach regularly once it got hot, and I was skeptical. I love being in the water, but I don't like sand, and I don't like the sun much, either. When my brother visited at the end of March we did go to the beach for an hour, but it was cold (which was nice) and only three of the children even went into the water. Wind kept blowing sand in my face and I sang my favorite beach song again. In the middle of May a friend took us sailing, and the beach there was all stones, which I liked very much, but the children missed sand.
So...by the end of May, my husband had found the perfect beach for us, in Pervolia, about 15 minutes away. Once I've gone to all the hassle of getting everyone and all the stuff into the car, I really don't care if we drive 15 minutes instead of five, especially for this perfect beach. It has stones where our stuff all stays sand-free, and right at the water it has sand for the children to play in. It stays shallow for a very long way, so I'm not paranoid about the children, and the very best part: when we go around 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon, we have SHADE--even in the water! And there are hardly any people there, and most of the people we've seen are Cypriots, not tourists. I've even had a couple of good exchanges with non-English-speaking Cypriots, and they're very hard to find. So for the last five weeks or so we have been to the beach three or four times every week, and we've been loving it.
Yesterday, however, we couldn't go to "our" beach, because we had a homeschool families get-together at the beach here in Larnaca, which is all sand. We did find a little bit of shade from the lifeguard station, but there was sand in everything and on everything, and there were people all over. I did enjoy the part where I was in the water, and I very much enjoyed having the time with the other parents, but I'm looking forward to going to Pervolia tonight. I'm going to have to get used to sand, though, too, as the homeschoolers want to meet at the beach every week, and our housegroup will be meeting at the beach every other week throughout the summer, starting tomorrow. And yesterday I promised my husband that I would NOT sing the best beach song that was ever written, so I didn't. And that's the point of this post--getting to sing the song! :-)
You like to be playing in the sun when it's hot.
I wish I could find me some shade where it's not.
You tell me the islands are very, very pretty,
but me, I find them...a little too gritty.
Any sand-coping strategies out there?
When I was 18 I went to Mexico for a year, lived six hours from the coast, and went with the youth group to the beach over a weekend, which also happened to be my birthday. Except for getting sunburned after sitting in the back of a pickup truck for six hours, and the campfire where they all sang happy birthday to me and each and every person gave me a hug (I love Latin America!), I don't remember much from that time, either. Is it possible I didn't even go in the water?
I've also been to the beach several times in Costa Rica: once with the group of exchange students when I was there the first time in 1988, once with my host brother and some of his friends (I think in 1993, but not sure), and once with most of the family two years ago. We did have a wonderful time, but the sand was all over the place and irritating. Having the outdoor shower in the house where we stayed was very helpful.
During my 17 1/2 years in Germany we made several day-trips (three-hour drive each way) to the beach in the Netherlands, but the last time was five years ago, and I'd also been to the Baltic Sea a couple of times, the last time 11 years ago.
I shouldn't forget that last year we lived in Muizenberg, South Africa, for four months, literally a five-minute walk from the beach...and I went to the beach a total of three times.
Oh yes, and we spent a couple of days at the beach in Thailand three years ago. I didn't want to be there (at the beach, that is--I loved the eight weeks in Thailand that we spent with the PEOPLE), hating being surrounded by tourists and sand. I annoyed my family and my friends by singing Sandra Boynton's wonderful song, "Tropical Sand." Here's my favorite line from the first verse:
You like the tropical sun and the tropical sea, But hey, mon, Alaska sounds good to me.
Then the brilliant chorus:
I got de sand in my toes and de sand in my nose,
de sand in my ears and de sand in my clothes.
I got de sand in my hair and de sand in my face.
I think I got de sand most everyplace.
And we now live in Cyprus, where the furthest distance from the beach isn't very far, and we live in Larnaca, right on the coast. Without children I could probably walk to the beach in 20 minutes, we can certainly drive there in less than five minutes (parking and getting into and out of the car take longer than the drive), but I DON'T LIKE SAND. People had been telling me since January that we'd be going to the beach regularly once it got hot, and I was skeptical. I love being in the water, but I don't like sand, and I don't like the sun much, either. When my brother visited at the end of March we did go to the beach for an hour, but it was cold (which was nice) and only three of the children even went into the water. Wind kept blowing sand in my face and I sang my favorite beach song again. In the middle of May a friend took us sailing, and the beach there was all stones, which I liked very much, but the children missed sand.
So...by the end of May, my husband had found the perfect beach for us, in Pervolia, about 15 minutes away. Once I've gone to all the hassle of getting everyone and all the stuff into the car, I really don't care if we drive 15 minutes instead of five, especially for this perfect beach. It has stones where our stuff all stays sand-free, and right at the water it has sand for the children to play in. It stays shallow for a very long way, so I'm not paranoid about the children, and the very best part: when we go around 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon, we have SHADE--even in the water! And there are hardly any people there, and most of the people we've seen are Cypriots, not tourists. I've even had a couple of good exchanges with non-English-speaking Cypriots, and they're very hard to find. So for the last five weeks or so we have been to the beach three or four times every week, and we've been loving it.
Yesterday, however, we couldn't go to "our" beach, because we had a homeschool families get-together at the beach here in Larnaca, which is all sand. We did find a little bit of shade from the lifeguard station, but there was sand in everything and on everything, and there were people all over. I did enjoy the part where I was in the water, and I very much enjoyed having the time with the other parents, but I'm looking forward to going to Pervolia tonight. I'm going to have to get used to sand, though, too, as the homeschoolers want to meet at the beach every week, and our housegroup will be meeting at the beach every other week throughout the summer, starting tomorrow. And yesterday I promised my husband that I would NOT sing the best beach song that was ever written, so I didn't. And that's the point of this post--getting to sing the song! :-)
You like to be playing in the sun when it's hot.
I wish I could find me some shade where it's not.
You tell me the islands are very, very pretty,
but me, I find them...a little too gritty.
Any sand-coping strategies out there?
Monday, June 15, 2009
June 15, 2009: Do you like homeschooling?
First, a semantics disclaimer: the word "homeschooling" for me does not say
anything about our "homeschooling style", just that our children don't attend
traditional school, public or private! We're fairly relaxed, which translates to
wildy disorganized in the eyes of the highly structured, yet far too structured
in the eyes of the true "free-learners." I can live with that. :-) Anyway, as I
was saying...
Last week, with the whole family in the car, and for no particular reason, I asked my oldest daughter (Marie, 11 years and 9 months old) if she likes being homeschooled. She said, "Umm...yeah, I guess so." I asked why, and she said because she hates getting up early. (She went to public school for six months in third grade, nearly four years ago, and yes, she hated getting up every single school day of those six months.) I asked if she would want to go to school if she could start at, say, at 10:00, and she said maybe. Then I told her that it's really okay to say what she thinks, that I wasn't trying to get her to answer what she might think I would like to hear, but that I really wanted to know. So she went on to say that at school she really liked art class and misses that, and she enjoyed recess and playing with the other children, and the rest was okay except for P.E. We talked about it a little longer and she admitted she likes math at home better (that surprised me--at the time, she seemed quite happy with the ridiculously easy busywork, not bothered in the slightest by not being challenged), and she likes all the reading we do, and she likes having lots of time to read on her own. It came down to that if she could do "flexi-schooling", which I recently read about in a book called "Free-range Education", she would probably like that very much, but that if that's not an option, homeschooling is better than going to school, although kind of in a "lesser of two evils" type of way. Not very encouaraging, really, but a good chat.
Then I turned to my 10-year-old son, Jacob, and asked him the same question. From him came the enthusiastic, "YES!! Of course!" I asked why, and he said, "Because I can get up when I want to and read what I want to and learn what I want to and however I want to and wherever I want to and I can think what I want to and say what I want to and nobody teases me and I can play with the friends I want to play with and do the things I want to do." I purposely didn't put any punctuation in there, because he definitely didn't use any while speaking! We talked a bit more, but there wasn't much more to say. From my point of view, he totally "gets" why we're homeschooling. (He attended first grade for six months, at the same time Marie was in third grade.)
Just to finish off, I asked my nearly-seven-year-old son, Lukas, if he likes being homeschooled, and the little ham said, "Yes, because I get to spend more time with my mother." As a friend of mine wrote on her blog about her son a few weeks ago, he would probably make a great politician, but we have higher hopes for him. I did talk a bit more with Lukas, but as he's never been to school, he doesn't have anything to compare it to, and it boiled down to the fact that he's quite happy with his life.
Then Katie (will be four next month) said, "Mommy, you didn't ask me!" so I said, "Okay, Katie, do you like being homeschooled?" She put on her silly little "I'm-pretending-to-be-shy-because-so-many-people-think-that's-cute" face and said, "Yes." I dutifully continued with, "Why do you like it?" and she said, "Because I get to do math!" When Lukas finished Earlybird 2B several months ago, Katie took over his book, constantly asking me to do it with her. I finally got her her own book, Earlybird 1A, a few weeks ago, which was a bit silly, because she finished half of the book in about three sittings. Whatever.
Just to be silly, I then turned to Helen, nine months old, and said, "So, Helen, do you want to be homeschooled, too?" and Marie responded extremely emphatically, "Yes, definitely!" I was rather surprised, after her own rather wishy-washy response, and asked why she was so sure that Helen would like being homeschooled. Marie's response, "Because Helen has strong opinions." Very interesting. I asked then if one can't have strong opinions at school, and Marie got kind of quiet again and finally said, "Well, yes, but you can't do anything about them. You're sort of supposed to think the same things the other kids think, and like the same things and have the same things, and you're not really supposed to like math or like the teachers or anything like that." I asked her if she didn't have any strong opinions herself, and she said she does now, and wouldn't let people change them anyway, but that would be one reason she wouldn't want to go to school ALL the time, because it would be too exhausting keeping her own opinions.
Insightful, I thought, and rather more encouraging than the first conversation with Marie! Overall, my children like homeschooling. :-)
Last week, with the whole family in the car, and for no particular reason, I asked my oldest daughter (Marie, 11 years and 9 months old) if she likes being homeschooled. She said, "Umm...yeah, I guess so." I asked why, and she said because she hates getting up early. (She went to public school for six months in third grade, nearly four years ago, and yes, she hated getting up every single school day of those six months.) I asked if she would want to go to school if she could start at, say, at 10:00, and she said maybe. Then I told her that it's really okay to say what she thinks, that I wasn't trying to get her to answer what she might think I would like to hear, but that I really wanted to know. So she went on to say that at school she really liked art class and misses that, and she enjoyed recess and playing with the other children, and the rest was okay except for P.E. We talked about it a little longer and she admitted she likes math at home better (that surprised me--at the time, she seemed quite happy with the ridiculously easy busywork, not bothered in the slightest by not being challenged), and she likes all the reading we do, and she likes having lots of time to read on her own. It came down to that if she could do "flexi-schooling", which I recently read about in a book called "Free-range Education", she would probably like that very much, but that if that's not an option, homeschooling is better than going to school, although kind of in a "lesser of two evils" type of way. Not very encouaraging, really, but a good chat.
Then I turned to my 10-year-old son, Jacob, and asked him the same question. From him came the enthusiastic, "YES!! Of course!" I asked why, and he said, "Because I can get up when I want to and read what I want to and learn what I want to and however I want to and wherever I want to and I can think what I want to and say what I want to and nobody teases me and I can play with the friends I want to play with and do the things I want to do." I purposely didn't put any punctuation in there, because he definitely didn't use any while speaking! We talked a bit more, but there wasn't much more to say. From my point of view, he totally "gets" why we're homeschooling. (He attended first grade for six months, at the same time Marie was in third grade.)
Just to finish off, I asked my nearly-seven-year-old son, Lukas, if he likes being homeschooled, and the little ham said, "Yes, because I get to spend more time with my mother." As a friend of mine wrote on her blog about her son a few weeks ago, he would probably make a great politician, but we have higher hopes for him. I did talk a bit more with Lukas, but as he's never been to school, he doesn't have anything to compare it to, and it boiled down to the fact that he's quite happy with his life.
Then Katie (will be four next month) said, "Mommy, you didn't ask me!" so I said, "Okay, Katie, do you like being homeschooled?" She put on her silly little "I'm-pretending-to-be-shy-because-so-many-people-think-that's-cute" face and said, "Yes." I dutifully continued with, "Why do you like it?" and she said, "Because I get to do math!" When Lukas finished Earlybird 2B several months ago, Katie took over his book, constantly asking me to do it with her. I finally got her her own book, Earlybird 1A, a few weeks ago, which was a bit silly, because she finished half of the book in about three sittings. Whatever.
Just to be silly, I then turned to Helen, nine months old, and said, "So, Helen, do you want to be homeschooled, too?" and Marie responded extremely emphatically, "Yes, definitely!" I was rather surprised, after her own rather wishy-washy response, and asked why she was so sure that Helen would like being homeschooled. Marie's response, "Because Helen has strong opinions." Very interesting. I asked then if one can't have strong opinions at school, and Marie got kind of quiet again and finally said, "Well, yes, but you can't do anything about them. You're sort of supposed to think the same things the other kids think, and like the same things and have the same things, and you're not really supposed to like math or like the teachers or anything like that." I asked her if she didn't have any strong opinions herself, and she said she does now, and wouldn't let people change them anyway, but that would be one reason she wouldn't want to go to school ALL the time, because it would be too exhausting keeping her own opinions.
Insightful, I thought, and rather more encouraging than the first conversation with Marie! Overall, my children like homeschooling. :-)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
April 29, 2009: Accidents etc.
Just a quick list of what we've had since arriving in Cyprus January 14th
this year:
January 15th--I broke a filling, had it replaced. Now I know a dentist who speaks very little English.
A week later--Jörn had a crown come off, had it glued back on. He went to a different dentist, who speaks very good English.
Middle of March--Lukas cut his thumb with a pocketknife, we opted not to bother with stiches, but he'll have a nice scar.
Later the same day--Jacob ran through a (closed) sliding glass door, one big cut on his knee, two more smaller ones on his leg, we opted not to bother with stiches, but he'll have a nice scar.
End of March--Jacob had an ear infection, now we know an English-speaking GP.
A week later--Katie had a fever and ear pain for two days, on Katie's second day of fever, Helen screamed for two hours, then had a fever in the night. Katie was fine, Helen had an ear infection, now we know an English-speaking pediatrician.
Two weeks ago--someone kicked a soccer ball into the side of our car, denting the front fender so that the driver's door wouldn't open. A neighbor straightened it, we haven't done anything else about it.
A week and a half ago--I let chapped lips get out of control and had a hugely swollen and infected lip that spread to lymph nodes, but it got better after about four days. The pharmacist is getting to know us quite well.
Last week--Jacob dropped something in the bathroom sink and it (the sink/washbasin) broke. It was replaced yesterday. Now we know a nice English-speaking plumber.
Last night--Katie was running down the hall and tripped and fell. She has a swollen gum, a loose tooth, and a fat lip.
This afternoon--Lukas was climbing up the side of the veranda and he and the concrete slab on top of the brick planters that make up the walls of the veranda crashed to the concrete ground. Now we know where the hospital is and Lukas has had his first x-ray, but his ankle is thankfully only sprained, not broken. I'm supposed to keep a six-year-old boy still and with his foot up for five days.
Cost so far: 10 Euro deductible (excess) for Jörn's dentist, 50 Euros for replacing the sliding door, and that only because we forgot to ask for a receipt, we were so shocked at it being done within two hours.
German health insurance and liability insurance rock!
January 15th--I broke a filling, had it replaced. Now I know a dentist who speaks very little English.
A week later--Jörn had a crown come off, had it glued back on. He went to a different dentist, who speaks very good English.
Middle of March--Lukas cut his thumb with a pocketknife, we opted not to bother with stiches, but he'll have a nice scar.
Later the same day--Jacob ran through a (closed) sliding glass door, one big cut on his knee, two more smaller ones on his leg, we opted not to bother with stiches, but he'll have a nice scar.
End of March--Jacob had an ear infection, now we know an English-speaking GP.
A week later--Katie had a fever and ear pain for two days, on Katie's second day of fever, Helen screamed for two hours, then had a fever in the night. Katie was fine, Helen had an ear infection, now we know an English-speaking pediatrician.
Two weeks ago--someone kicked a soccer ball into the side of our car, denting the front fender so that the driver's door wouldn't open. A neighbor straightened it, we haven't done anything else about it.
A week and a half ago--I let chapped lips get out of control and had a hugely swollen and infected lip that spread to lymph nodes, but it got better after about four days. The pharmacist is getting to know us quite well.
Last week--Jacob dropped something in the bathroom sink and it (the sink/washbasin) broke. It was replaced yesterday. Now we know a nice English-speaking plumber.
Last night--Katie was running down the hall and tripped and fell. She has a swollen gum, a loose tooth, and a fat lip.
This afternoon--Lukas was climbing up the side of the veranda and he and the concrete slab on top of the brick planters that make up the walls of the veranda crashed to the concrete ground. Now we know where the hospital is and Lukas has had his first x-ray, but his ankle is thankfully only sprained, not broken. I'm supposed to keep a six-year-old boy still and with his foot up for five days.
Cost so far: 10 Euro deductible (excess) for Jörn's dentist, 50 Euros for replacing the sliding door, and that only because we forgot to ask for a receipt, we were so shocked at it being done within two hours.
German health insurance and liability insurance rock!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
April 21, 2009: Katie's speckled frog and a cockroach
Katie came to me very excited this morning, because she had found a toy frog
and wants to take it to playgroup next week for a reverse-counting song we sing
about frogs: "Five Little Speckled Frogs."
Five little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log,
Eating some most delicious grubs, yum yum!
One jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool,
So there were four green speckled frogs. Hum hum.
So she played with the frog for awhile, singing some version or another of this song, but then decided the frog needed speckles, as it was only plain green. After a long family discussion about the frog's ownership, it was determined that it was Jacob's frog, but he never denies his little sister anything he can grant her, so he carefully speckled the frog with a permanent marker. Delighted, Katie continued to play and sing, and this was her latest version of the song, fitting the melody perfectly, with the text as near as I can remember it:
One little speckled frog sat on a lilypad
Eating some yummy yummy bugs, yum yum!
It jumped into the pond to go-o swimming,
And wa-as very, very dead. Oh no!
Her explanation was that as it landed on its back (she'd of course tossed it up in the air to land in the "pond"), it was dead like the cockroach we found in the shower this morning. Which reminded us that we'd found a dead cockoach in the shower this morning and hadn't done anything about it, so went to look at it to think some more about it, and discovered that it WASN'T dead, after all!! It was on its back, but wiggling its legs. We put a yogurt pot over it while we decide what to do next. Yuck.
Five little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log,
Eating some most delicious grubs, yum yum!
One jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool,
So there were four green speckled frogs. Hum hum.
So she played with the frog for awhile, singing some version or another of this song, but then decided the frog needed speckles, as it was only plain green. After a long family discussion about the frog's ownership, it was determined that it was Jacob's frog, but he never denies his little sister anything he can grant her, so he carefully speckled the frog with a permanent marker. Delighted, Katie continued to play and sing, and this was her latest version of the song, fitting the melody perfectly, with the text as near as I can remember it:
One little speckled frog sat on a lilypad
Eating some yummy yummy bugs, yum yum!
It jumped into the pond to go-o swimming,
And wa-as very, very dead. Oh no!
Her explanation was that as it landed on its back (she'd of course tossed it up in the air to land in the "pond"), it was dead like the cockroach we found in the shower this morning. Which reminded us that we'd found a dead cockoach in the shower this morning and hadn't done anything about it, so went to look at it to think some more about it, and discovered that it WASN'T dead, after all!! It was on its back, but wiggling its legs. We put a yogurt pot over it while we decide what to do next. Yuck.
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