Nora's comment

Nora says…

When Mommie says that I do something like, for instance saying that it’s 6-9 weeks, I was actually messed up, because I mixed up months and weeks. And I really think she should correct it.

Anyway, back to the real subject. Today in science class, we did a lot (not exactly a lot), well, actually nothing. But then we Alexandra said we had to study for our science exam, and then we had to do a worksheet for English and explain the respiratory system in our notebooks. It took me 15 minutes and my math took me 25 minutes because it’s all in Spanish and it’s really hard. But that’s part of learning Spanish.

In art class yesterday it was quite fun because we worked on a drawing that you copy from a book and you put some squares on a piece of paper and then number them, and then when you say on square 16, there’s a circle so I have to draw a circle in square 16. But the cool thing is that it becomes 10 times bigger.

Updates from this week

Here's some random information from our week:

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!!!

From Nora

Today in class, we did a project about the respiratory system. (the respiratory system is how we breathe.) It included a bottle with the bottom cut off, 2 water balloons, 2 straws, and a plastic bag. BUT, of course, my balloons were too big . I brought red balloons, like my science book had.

Days 6 & 7 -- and then Jon's back!

The weekend passed pretty quietly. On Friday night there was an alarming car right beneath the kids' window -- terrified Seth and put Mommie right back in bed with him. Saturday it woke him up from his nap by alarming; we went downstairs to get its license plate number only to find the police already there towing it. Of course, they towed it only about 1/4 of a mile away to a dusty parking lot, but at least it's quieter at that distance. It was Seth's highlight of the weekend -- first thing he told Jon about when Jon arrived home.

Saturday Nora and Sara went off to the local amusement park, where they were delighted to find Nora met the height requirements for most of the rides. Nora again showed she has no fear -- went on everything. Meanwhile, the boys and I meandered around San Sebastian in the AM, and after nap took a nice walk in the park with their new scooter and balance bike.

Sunday we said goodbye to Sara (sniff) and waited for Jon to arrive home by cleaning the apartment and getting some fresh bread. After Jon came home, we went over to my cousin Mary's for a birthday party for her twins. The twins are soooo cute (blonde, fair, tall, with a sparkle in their eyes), and (miraculously) six young kids played happily with one another for a couple hours in a confined space.

Today we woke up to our first day of bad weather since we moved here. Windy and raining and, because we're close to the edge of the time zone, pitch black. The rain seems to have taken a break for the kids' walk to school, but we'll see how they fare if it starts back up by the end of the day; they walk about 20 minutes each way. We also need to figure out how to try our laundry -- dryers are uncommon here, and we are finding that the clothes don't dry well even when it's a regular fall (i.e., 65 and sunny) day. It's possible that the dryer rack will spend the winter in our kitchen.

In good news, the lice seem to be gone, and the iPhone has risen from the dead. And Jon is home!

Day 4 & 5

The Spanish word for today: Piojos. Lice. Lots of them, covering the scalp of one itchy child. Should've known -- we've been around the block with lice this past summer. Thank heavens Sara is here to run interference with the other two while I nitpicked (is that grammatically correct?) and washed sheets for almost 2 hours this afternoon.

Day 3: The terrible 3’s

The title refers not to how day 3 without Jon went (it was average) but to Seth, who seems to be headed for Terrible Threes. One of my friends once told me that she thinks kids tend to alternate good/bad years, and we’ve found it to be roughly true for our kids too, at least while they are small. Seth had a rotten period between 12-24 months (not sleeping, little self-control, into everything, wailing like a banshee, Mr. Destructo), but his behavior improved dramatically at age 2. Now, a month into age 3, he’s back at it again, except he’s a year older and wiser.

Let’s take tonight’s drama as an example. The background for this story is that Seth has to go pooh potty every night exactly 11 minutes after the start of dinner. Usually, it’s a race to see what happens first – Mommie finishing dinner, or Seth making the poop face.

The other background on this story is that Seth has been washing his hands BY HIMSELF after going potty for the last few weeks. Actually, we often find him in there, mid-hand-wash, coated with soap and happy as a clam, not ready to finish the job anytime soon. So let’s amend the above to say that he’s been “GLEEFULLY washing his hands BY HIMSELF” for the past few weeks.

For the past couple days, however, Seth’s been making a big production of NOT being able to wash his own hands. Here’s tonight’s transaction after going potty:

Me: Seth, please wash your hands.

Seth, standing on his hand-washing stool: I caaaannnn’t

Me, walking away: Seth, wash your hands and then you can finish your yogurt.

Seth: I caaaaannnnn’t. I can’t reeeeaaaach.

The wailing continues for several minutes. I hear water running but the wailing does not abate. I walk in to discover Seth actually patting the soap, but still wailing:

Seth: I caaaan’t reeaaach the soaaaap.

Me: You are touching the soap, Seth.

Seth: I caaaannn’t reaaaaaach the soaaaap.

I leave again. Seth “falls” to the floor, and begins to wail that he’s fallen and can’t get up – another recently discovered ploy. I tell him to come for a hug when he’s ready, which he does immediately. At the end of the hug, I suggest he wash his hands.

Seth: I caaaaannnn’t.

Me: Once you wash your hands, you can blow out the candles*

Seth: Oh. OK.

He then scampers into the bathroom, we hear water running, and he emerges 30 seconds later fresh and clean.

So as you can see, he’s learned toddler manipulation tactics – somewhere, somehow, I wonder exactly from whom, big sister Nora???? Luckily, Mommie still has some tricks. But he is steadily gaining on me.

*it’s Simchat Torah, lest you think we dine with candles every night.

Day 2, complete

So Day 2 is almost complete -- Seth is in bed, and big kids are studying Nora's new Torah with Sara. Nora was awarded the Torah in a school ceremony for 4th graders; it's the Torah she will study this year and would use in the future if we were to stay in Madrid. It was preceded by a Succot party, so I got to watch Nora run around like mad with the other 4th graders. She has certainly made some friends -- she's got the social gene, probably from the Star side.