Author Archives: Jenny

Being A Continent

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Well, we’ve reached the end of the week, just barely. After the fairly successful first and second days, reality sank in for the kids starting on Wednesday, when it was time to wake up and do it all over again. Each day they came home more and more tired and overwhelmed by the prospect of a whole year of this schedule and afraid they will never understand what is going on. It helped that Athena and Apollo could come home for lunch each day, speak English and relax their brains a little bit. After three days of eating at school, one in cooking class (fun!) and two in the cafeteria, today Artemis took the train home to eat and relax her brain with us as well, and I planned to drive her back to give her a little more time at home. I made a yummy meal that everyone likes, and while everyone is worn thin and soooo ready for the weekend, there was a really nice feeling of family togetherness around the table. This is hard, we’re almost to the end of the week, I feel somewhat guilty that we’ve voluntarily inflicted this on you, but we’re in it together and we’re going to support each other and muddle through until it gets better. We’ve had tears from everyone this week, except for Hermes – and I’m willing to bet his are not far off as weariness is showing with his frequent tongue sucking. Each one of the kids has had a moment when they are just DONE; they are discouraged, overwhelmed and they fall apart and dissolve. To be honest, I’ve had some of those moments as well.  In addition, this week, Zeus began his Job Hunt For Real, and as such this morning after the kids were all off and I’d come back from the village store with groceries, he needed to debrief and bounce his ideas off me. It was good, and I think I am able that way to be a real help, but it did make me reflect that mostly this week I’ve been a Meal Cooker, Idea Bouncer and Pieces of Kid Picker-Upper. As you may know, my “job” while we are here is to write the novel that I started last year and am “supposed” to write, by which I mean that I have the continuing sense that it is a story that God wants me to tell. (Now this is potentially frightening that I have put it here because you will probably hold me to it!) Helen, the protagonist, has been sitting in her new friend’s apartment for over a year now, waiting for me to once more take up pen and get on with her life. Last week, up in the mountains I read a short book called The War of Art to get my rear in gear and my mindset ready. So the first full day of school in a quiet house for a couple hours, I sat down with ol’ Helen and got reacquainted. It was more of a symbolic act to show the world that I am not waffling anymore, but since then,… well…Helen went back to sitting in her chair with her sprained ankle while I dried tears and made hot lunches and bounced ideas. And that’s okay – I gave myself permission not to actually write anything until next week. And after all, I need to update you, too. C.S.Lewis wrote somewhere about his mother that she was like a Continent, her presence large and solid and stable, and when she died he and his father and brother all lost their moorings. I don’t want to die young and make my family lose their moorings, but I do like the idea of being a Continent for my family. (In a healthy way, of course.) I get to be there for them, hopefully solid and stable, especially right now, showing love with clean clothes, covered books (that’s a whole other post), walks to school, good food, a listening ear and a strict bedtime. Helen can wait a little longer, don’t you think? She’s got a sprained ankle; how far can she go? 

They Survived!

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Yes they did! IMG_0101 Artemis with a bit of residual deer expression in front of  College Thurmann in Porrentruy. She had to be there at 8:10 a.m. It was very rainy. Notice how far away we are from the door and the other kids – wouldn’t want to be the dorky mom taking a photo. Parents were invited to join the students for the welcome meeting. Then the different class teachers came to the front, student names were called and then they all left in a clump, while the parents stuck around to ask questions and go on a tour of the school. Of the seven home-room teachers for her grade, two of them greeted each student with a handshake and an open gaze straight in their eyes. Artemis’ teacher, Madame Quelquechose was one of them. I liked her immediately. At the end of her day, Artemis managed the train home, and when I picked her up at the village train station she wore a big grin and was pleased at having figured it all out. 1:30 Monday it was time for Athena and Apollo. Their first school day was only an hour and a half in the afternoon, which seemed like not very much for all the dread that had preceded. But we walked them down and helped them each find their coat hook and classroom.  IMG_0102 IMG_0103 In front of the village school. When I picked them up an hour and a half later, they seemed a little dazed but okay. Athena even was walking out chatting with another girl from her class. This morning when we walked across the playground, I recognized the group of 6th grade girls headed out away from the school. It took me a little while to realize that they were headed for us – they had come to greet their new classmate. They whisked her off merrily with them, and I almost cried for joy at their sweetness. After I walked them inside, wished the teacher a good day and left the school, I really did cry a little. For the last three years, I’ve been my kids’ teacher and responsible for their education. We spent our days together as a family. In that moment it felt like I had given up my identity. I know that it is for a season, and that I am still their mama and that there is a little relief mixed in there too at the weight of some of the responsibility being lifted. But still, that feeling in that moment was overwhelming. But, no time to be pensive! At 11:30 they have their lunch break and come home. And did this mama have their hot lunch all ready to go? Yes, she did, thanks for asking! Thai curry, too, yum. Then time for clean-up and a little lego playing. Then at 1:30 they went back until 3. IMG_0114 This is Day 2, walking to school. IMG_0118 Apollo sporting his new soccer ball slippers! In Switzerland, you wear slippers to school! You leave them at school, and there is a place to change out of your dirty shoes and into before class. Those shiny clean floors stay shiny and clean. But honestly, I don’t know how the children learn in slippers. I don’t think I could. When I put slippers on, my brain goes flopsy – time to relax. IMG_0123 This afternoon, it was Hermes’ turn. Yesterday he was quite miffed that his school didn’t start until today, and today he couldn’t wait until after lunch. IMG_0124 Hermes has slippers too. IMG_0129 At 3:15, out came a parade of preschoolers, all wearing new reflective thingabobs for safety. He’ll goes back tomorrow morning. Tonight everyone is tired – me too – and feelings are all over the map. One is nearly giddy with mentally categorizing tomorrow’s classes and the people who she met today who may well be in tomorrow’s math class. One was quite discouraged at the long school day and feeling behind and classmates who were taking a little while to warm up. And Athena is almost perplexed at the friendliness of the girls in her class. At every turn they make sure she has understood what to do and has the right pencil to do it with. That girl has spent her life reading books about kids who are unkind to the new kid in school – Anne of Green Gables, By the Banks of Plum Creek, Bridge to Terebithia – I think she must have geared herself up for that. But these girls are nothing like that! Well, praise God, I say! Let us hope that is a foretaste of the year to come.

Our First Party

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July 31st we had our first party in our new-for-this-year home. Apollo and Switzerland both have birthdays on August 1st, and Boncourt very practically has its National Holiday fireworks on the 31st so that everyone can sleep in on the day off after staying up late and watching the show. Our family here as well as some old family friends joined us for the Mexican fiesta buffet and after dark we watched the fireworks from our front lawn. They shoot them off from the soccer field which is just below us so we had a good view aside from a few which exploded low and just behind the large walnut tree in the cow field across the road. In between dinner and fireworks we celebrated 9 years of Apollo and he received some rather nice gifties. We gave him our family gifts on his actual birthday, the next day after we came home from church. And at church he also got a Very Nice Gift from the Lord: he got to meet his teacher for the year, Madame Choulat, the young, pretty and kind lady who was sitting right in front of us. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Thanks to all of you, too, for your kind birthday wishes. IMG_9876 Our dinner al fresco ~ I love eating outside. IMG_9884 Nine candles on the cake. IMG_9887 Don’t you love pictures of kids blowing out candles with puffy cheeks? IMG_9891 Pleased with the prospect of his presents. DSCF0304 They really do love each other, after all! IMG_9910 Here is a lizard that Hermes drew on the white board as a birthday present for Apollo. Don’t you like it sticking out its tongue? Peter And I just can’t resist posting . He was about one year here – look at those pudgy hands. Ah, Apollo, you’ve grown up much too fast! Happy Nine Years!

School Starts Tomorrow

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Nerves are running a little high this evening. I just gave another round of kisses to children who should be sleeping by now but are very wakeful. Bangs have been trimmed, outfits have been laid out, logistical plans for the day have been gone over. Many prayers have been said.They are scared and nervous. I would be too. Actually, I am too, on their behalf. They are understandably anxious about beginning school not only in an unfamiliar school with new kids and a new town, but in a new language. Not entirely new, granted, but it’s never before been their main language of education. There’s a lot of missing vocabulary – how exactly do you say #2 pencil in French? Apollo is particularly concerned because, as he rightly points out, he’s never really even been in a real school just homeschooled. I’ve tried to encourage them: Courage is just Fear that has said its prayers. Sometimes I wonder at my own year abroad that began all this business. I somehow worked up the guts to do a year of university in another language, especially amazing since my French at the time really wasn’t very good. (Which is why I had to find a private tutor, HA!) Seriously though, I recall that panicky feeling the week before classes began, when all of us study abroad students fretted and fumed and tried to find classes together. I remember a lot of not sleeping at the beginning of that year and feelings of deep seated dread. But it was, in the end, one of the most wonderful and formative years of my life. It changed it and formed it for the better, at some point French phrases started coming out of my mouth, and I am still hangin’ with that ol’ Swiss boyfriend. Obviously, my kids’ own lives were shaped by that year as well. So, I tell them, the things with the most fear attached are usually the things with the biggest payoff. Feel the fear, say your prayers, take a deep breath and jump in that pool. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power and of self control. Amen?Now then, what should I wear tomorrow?

Lost in Liechtenstein

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We are on our way up to the Alps again, up to Trun for a few days before school begins on Monday. Then we shall stop traipsing for awhile and settle down into our school schedule. After three years of homeschooling, the idea of a school start deadline feels very serious. So, travel weary as we are getting, we set off again. Athena is especially tired of long car rides, so we bribed her with a visit to Liechtenstein on the way. We drove up to Vaduz, the capital and walked through the pedestrian zone. At the visitor’s center we bought postcards and some stamps because that is what you do in Liechtenstein. We sat for a few minutes and started writing postcards while the boys watched a little video about the country. Then we called them and continued on.  A ways down the street we realized that Apollo was missing. He wasn’t there! We lost our child! I started to worry and wondered briefly if I should panic, but then I thought, Hey, it’s a small country, he can’t have gone too far! Zeus ran back, and while I was worried that maybe Apollo would be alarmed when he realized that we’d left without him, he wasn’t. When he calmly walked up with his Papa, he shrugged and said, “Well, it’s a small country. I figured I couldn’t get too lost!” IMG_0054 Here is the end of the main pedestrian zone. On the left is the National Museum and further on before the church, the parliament buildings. On the right behind the trees is the National Bank and the National Exchange. So this is like the National Mall – everything is right there. Isn’t that tidy and nice? IMG_0047 Mailing postcards to Grandpa Chuck who has always wanted a stamp from Liechtenstein. IMG_0046 The gang with a shot of the castle above. That is where the Prince of Liechtenstein lives, peering down over his subjects. We were in front of the visitor’s center which flew banners with greetings in many languages. Hence the Asian language greeting in the photo. The native language of Liechtenstein is a dialect of German, similar to Swiss German as far as I could tell, but like everywhere else, English is the commonly used tourist language. Bella liked Liechtenstein and graced it with a little blessing. A well dressed sixty-something lady who I think perhaps actually lived there (she just looked too put together and camera free to be a tourist) stopped me in the street and admired her, asking me how old she was, how long I had had her and such. She said she wanted to find a little poodle doggy like her. I think she wanted the name of the breeder or something, but I didn’t tell her that she was from far, far away. IMG_0049 Another, better shot of the Prince’s castle up on the hill. We learned from our Rick Steve’s video that of all European monarchies, the Prince of Liechtenstein probably has the most actual power of the day to day life of his subjects. We did not see him, but what we saw of day to day life there seemed calm and quiet and tidy so I guess he is doing a good job. The one exception was the crabby checkout lady at the grocery store where Zeus bought soup and bread for supper. She was not, he said emphatically, a good ambassador for her country. We did not stay for the nightlife, which is just as well, because I think perhaps there isn’t any. IMG_0051 Since we didn’t climb up the hill to the castle, and since they wouldn’t have let us in if we had, there is a very nice model of it down in the square below for photo opportunities. Overall, it was a nice 1 1/2 hour visit to Liechtenstein (2 hours if you count the drive from the border of Switzerland to Vaduz.) I think it takes more time to drive from Renton to Bothell than to drive the length of Liechtenstein. There is certainly more traffic to get to Bothell. Afterwards it felt very odd to return to Switzerland and to think of it as Big Switzerland in comparison. Another country to check off the list.