So it is Saturday! Yeah for the weekend. We have a busy day ahead of us, but I’m looking forward to all of it. Most importantly I’m going to attempt to get my nails done today. It has been over a month since my sweet dear feet have had any sort of attention. I hoping no one has notice how absolutely terrible they look, but I’m probably kidding myself. I say attempting because I’ve seen a salon I thought was adorable, but have no idea what its called and therefore have not made an appointment. I’ll hours if I have to!
So what have been up to for the past 3 days or so. My last post was short and not so sweet. The last three days have been a little difficult and have gotten the best or should I say the worst of my emotions. Wednesday was the orientation at Reid’s school. We were all very excited to meet the teacher and see all the kids bustling around, but the timing was not great. The orientation was to begin at 1pm in the theatre and they told me to get there at 12 if I wanted a parking space. There are maybe 50 parking spaces on the school campus so finding one is a luxury. I was so worried about how I would manage the two of them if I couldn’t. The school is on a hill so no walk is pie with a 20lb bump on your hip. Georgia is usually down for her nap around noon. So I struggled with her in the bbjorn as she squirmed and screamed while the head of school was giving his introduction. I finally took her upstairs in the theatre so as to not make a huge scene on our first day. That girl never fell asleep. Thankfully Reid was behaving and sat down in the theatre all by himself. I grabbed him a bit early deciding we could skip the rest of the general introduction to the school. We met his teacher, Mr. Balfour. He is from Scotland, but has taught in London and Malaysia for 11 years. Seems to be a nice man and it will be interesting having a man for Reid’s teacher. I always think of teachers as women so some things catch me off guard. After first entering Reid’s classroom we met one of the girls in the class. Her name is Maya. She asked Mr. Balfour if he would fix her hair. She had 2 very girly ribbony barrettes in so I just giggled to myself. It turns out he has a daughter in preschool so he used to doing hair. It just reminds me to open my mind and not always assume the stereotype. Reid felt right at home and found a motorcycle helmet with a visor. We stayed for a little while and then we left. I was exhausted from trying to put Gigi to sleep. Reid was so upset. He wanted to stay and play. I think he was so excited to see new toys and be in a child’s environment. They divided up the KPA(Kindergarten Prep Advanced) classes in shifts to ease them into school. 3 shifts on Thursday (1 hr each), half of the class attends Friday and then the other half attends in Monday. Everyone goes “full-time’ on Tuesday. Thursday Reid went to school for only one hour 8:30-9:30. Again during G’s nap. As I mull over the best way to spend the hour at his school I decide that I’ll just bring the stroller and push G around while Reid is in his class. We arrive at school and park at the back of the school (thank you God for opening a space for us) and I begin to push her up the hill. I wasn’t sure at this point how far the entrance to the school was but I saw an entrance on the side. There was another family following us and I asked them if we could entre there and they seemed as lost as I was. They said why not and so we went. We were immediately confronted with two steps which I can manage. Whoo. Sure enough the only way up to the next floor is about 25 steps. Crap! Oh again thank you Mr. Man whoever you are for carrying my stroller with baby up the stairs for me. Ugh…this is not going to be a fun morning! So I walk around to get my bearings and look for the elevator. I can’t seem to locate it, so I ask someone and he points down the long corridor. AS I follow his hand I see the yellow “awas” floor sign out front as he is saying…but it’s out of order. Did I break down in tears? Nope. I sucked it up and said well we will just have to deal. “Awas” means careful, caution, or warning…I haven’t looked it up, but like Houston there is plenty of construction here so you see AWAS a lot. So we park the stroller at the bottom of the stairs and head up to Reid’s floor. The school is massive. I think there are depending on which part of the hill you are on 5 levels. And I sigh. We find his class, talk for a bit with Mr. Balfour, and then I decide to walk to the cafeteria/canteen, to get the school menus, check some email etc. I made it for about 30 minutes and then decided to go check on Reid. Everything was fine, I let Georgia get down and play and they all had fun. Reid and another classmate, Maya, made me tea, oatmeal and steak. Another girl seemed to be obsessed with the scissors (that should be a fun year for her and her parents) and the 5foot tall boy in his class didn’t seem to do much at all. His name is Oscar and he is Norwegian I think. Seriously a very tall kid. Reid is the youngest and already the smallest no matter where he goes, so I’m curious to get a glimpse of the entire class together. That’s ok – my baby can hold his own…I hope. It was time for us to go and Reid was upset again. Good sign I guess. I let him play on the playground outside his room for a bit and he loved it. He started running around with some girls trying to get in on their game. We head back down to get the stroller and I decide that the best option to get back to our car is to go back the way we came. SO this time I pull G down the stairs backwards…you remember…the 25 stairs as the stroller is going boom, boom, boom. I’m really glad this experience is almost over! So I get down the stairs make it around the corner and up the two little stairs only to find…did you guess? The gate was locked?! Are you serious? Are you kidding me? Tears? Almost, but I held them back and turned around to navigate the tower of steps once again. To make this very long story short, I made the stairs, but still have two more levels to go up and someone carried the stroller for me. God Bless her! We made it to our car to find…a flat tire!!! At this point I was kind of talking in that nervous way like should I laugh hysterically or cry in hysterics! Fortunately we are renting our car so there is an emergency number on the windshield. I made it to the house and they came and fixed the tire for us. Breathe…so I was in a mood for sure and it was not the good kind. After lunch and nap I went out with the kids, I turned the wrong way because I forgot I needed gas and just burst into tears. I couldn’t help it now. I was through. I was through with new. I didn’t want to deal with anything else. I just wanted to go where I wanted to go, know how to get there, know that there was a place to park, know that I could get easily get my children from the car to wherever and yet, I had more to do. I made it and that’s where I left off last post with a chocolate croissant and red wine. Oh it tasted so good and helped my mood tremendously.
Day two at school was Friday. Reid was to attend class from 8:30-11:50. I got to school on time, found a parking place, CARRIED Gigi as we went to Reid’s class and dropped him off. All seemed to be going just perfectly. I made it home to collect some things and let Gigi nap a little and then headed to the mall to do a little shopping before picking him up. Being the good parent that I am I was late picking him up from school. I was coming from the mall versus our home and I wasn’t exactly sure of the route I was using so I was late. I went to his class and no Reid. The assistant says his is in the office with the teacher. So I go to the only office I know (up 2 flights of stairs carrying G) no Reid at the admissions office. I go to the school store back down stairs and no luck. Really starting to get annoyed and about to have a major breakdown. I’m already feeling terrible because I’m late and now I have no clue where he is. So back to the class and now the assistant isn’t there. I stumbled upon another teacher who asks if she can help me and with that shaky I’m about to burst into tears I say I can’t find my son. She says maybe he’s in the elementary office and I say oh I didn’t know there was one of those. So up the stais we started and here comes Reid and the teacher heading towards the canteen as he calls it to get lunch. OMG! I could just die of guilt, sweat, exhaustion and relief. So even though my day started out promising it went a little downhill from there. I felt so guilty I took Reid to Wendy’s for lunch. Yep, it is almost the same minus the drive thru. That is about it for Friday. We had a family night out Friday night for dinner and went to place called the Gasthaus or something like that. I was very much like a Beer garten and we had a good time. I have some pics from the night. We had delicious paella, and pork steak and Reid had a sausage pizza…with lots of beer of course. Gigi loved the paella. We have been letting her eat whatever we have in hopes that she develops a very diverse pallette….in hopes I say.
Georgia is getting told no by her daddy!
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