Weather: Several of you asked about the rainstorm we mentioned in our last post. It rained. Not as hard as the weather channel predicted, but still pretty hard. Three thoughts about October rain in Madrid:
1) Drying our laundry was difficult even under dry conditions this month. The rainstorm = drying laundry in our tiny kitchen.
2) There is no equivalent of weather.com/street-level doppler radar here in Madrid (that we have found, anyway). The closest you can get, in fact, is a satellite shot of all the Iberian Peninsula. This lack of street-level radar makes dashing out between rain showers to do those errands (or exercise) impossible, because you just never know when it’s going to start pouring again. It’s like going back to the 1990s, in terms of knowledge of what’s coming your way.
3) The rain has ushered in cooler fall weather – 50s and cloudy. Heather, who was under the illusion that Madrid would be sunny and 75 all year, has been grumpy all week.
Fitting in (or not): So Jon and I have both commented on how we appear to be easily identifiable to Spaniards as non-Spanish. We don’t exactly look Spanish, we have an unusually large family (by Spanish standards) and in terms of style, we come from the lowest-10% segment of the U.S. population (academics), which in España translates into the lowest .5% of the population in terms of dress. Many people start speaking English to us practically before we open our mouths.
This (and specifically, the worst-dressed part) led to Heather purchasing a pair of jeans today. See, the boot-cut jeans that Heather just purchased from Gap this spring (thanks Gap!) are so out of style here in Spain that you don’t see any woman wearing them. They wear skinny jeans. Every. Single. Woman. Kids wear skinny jeans. Even men wear skinny jeans. So now Heather has a pair of ‘80s style skinny jeans (for twelve Euro!).
Seth’s report card: We had Seth’s parent-teacher conference this week, and found that once again, there’s a wide gulf between our child at home and our child at school. The first words out of the teacher’s mouth were that he’s “muy contento” – very happy. In fact, she used all the Spanish words for happy: contento, alegre, feliz, satisfecho. Happy, happy, happy, happy. In fact, she portrayed him as the model student: eats everything at meals (even meat!), plays nicely with others, goes potty willingly, plays with everyone in the classroom, exceedingly verbal, advanced for his age in terms of cognitive ability. The only thing that makes him sad is conflict (he runs away) and boredom; when the latter strikes, he approaches his teachers and tells them “I sad. Call my Mommie. Her name Heather.”
In part, we’re relieved to hear he’s adjusted well. But we’re also suspicious. Do pre-school teachers butter parents up by telling them their kids are fabulous? Or is it really possible that, as our kids’ teachers have all uniformly said, we’ve produced three happy Starhills who eat everything on their plate and are very smart? And if so, how is it exactly that the children who (sometimes) act like little demons at home get such glowing report cards at school?
Nathan’s nose: The rainstorm led to a slippery playground, which led to Nathan bonking his nose on the pavement. Still swollen after a couple days. We got x-rays last night, and he’ll see the doctor on Friday. Will post an update when it becomes available. We’ll also post a list of the Spanish medical fees we’ve paid so far.
Nora’s science: Nora’s science unit includes the reproductive system. She just calmly informed me that babies are formed when a sperm meets an egg, and that it takes “six to nine weeks” for a baby to mature inside the mother’s body. I wish!!!
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