First Sleepover

Lainey is all ready to go, but Aidan is a little nervous and sad...

Last night, the kids had their first ever sleepover! Both have been asking on and off to have a friend over, or to spend the night at someone's house. I wasn't sure how it would go, considering they are just 4 and 6. So, to aim for success, they did their first sleepover together at our next door neighbor's house.

Aidan and Lainey spend lots of time with their friends, William and Teddy. Their mom and I carpool and since we live next door to each other we tend to see each other more than we see our husbands! Kirsten's husband was out of town, so she offered to take our kids overnight so Jason and I could go out. I figured this was the perfect set up for a first sleepover. The kids know Kirsten really well and feel comfortable with her and at her house. Aidan and Lainey love William and Teddy, so it was an easy decision!

All week long, the kids were looking forward to their sleepover. Especially Lainey who told anyone who would listen. As we drove home from skiing, they both kept asking "how long until we get to go to Teddy and William's house?". So at 6 o'clock we popped them in their PJ's and packed their bag. Lainey was beside herself with excitement. Aidan, not so much. As we were walking out the door, he started crying. Lainey was bouncing up and down and Aidan was blubbering. Uh oh.

Jason and I asked him what was wrong. We had packed his stuffed animal and a freshly worn shirt from both of us (one of his "musts" to sleep with). He was just going next door to a very familiar place and very familiar people. No big deal, right? Well, he was worried. It was snowing and was worried that it might snow too much for us to come get him in the morning. I assured him that we'd make it through the 15 meters between our buildings to get him, or worst case, we'd walk through the underground garage. Then he worried about sleeping with Lainey. "She squirms" he said. I reminded him that he sleeps with her on all our vacations and has survived. Then he worried about breakfast. "What if I don't like what they eat?" Well, considering he has no problem asking Kirsten for food or telling her he doesn't like something any other time, I assured him it wouldn't be a problem. Lastly, I assured him that if he didn't want to go he didn't have to and if at anytime in the night he wanted to come home, Kirsten would call us.

By this point, Lainey was nearly bursting out of her skin with excitement and desire to go. Aidan finally calmed down and decided to give it a try.

We walked all 15 meters to Kirsten's house. Lainey burst through the door showing off her PJ's and blanket. Her only negative was that she wasn't going to sleep on the floor in the same room as Teddy and William (she and Aidan were sharing the guest room bed). Aidan walked in a bit sheepishly but once he started playing on the computer with William he seemed fine. I stayed for a cup of tea with Kirsten and when things seemed to be going smoothly I gave them both kisses and left. Neither child really acknowledged me leaving.

Jason and I waited to hear from Kirsten before going anywhere. At 8pm I got a text from her saying Aidan was fast asleep and Lainey was still wide awake but "happy as Larry" (Larry must be big in England...anyway...).

So we went out for an AMAZING steak dinner and kept the phone by the bed in case of late night calls to come home. Unlike my first ever sleepover at Becky and Kelly's house, my kids made it through the whole night. They just came home today at 10am, and I'm glad to report that they are both "happy as Larry".

Skiing and Sledging...just another Sunday

Today, Jason had a great idea to take the kids up to Mt. Rigi, another great mountain in the area near Luzern. He's been working Saturdays so he hasn't gotten to go to ski lessons with the kids and me the last 2 weeks. We figured since it was foggy and grey down in Zurich, we'd head for the sun up above in the mountains!

We figured the kids would like to go tobogganing or "sledging" on the 3K run, but also thought we'd take our ski gear as Rigi's brochure said it was good for beginners. We hauled all our stuff up on the 30 minute cogwheel train ride up to Rigi Klum. What a view! I never get tired of looking at these mountains! It was obviously below freezing but it was so sunny, it felt almost warm (with all our gear on of course!). We ate lunch outside and rented our toboggans.

We had seen lots of families heading down the toboggan run, so we thought it would be great fun. It was kind of fun, in that scare-you-to-death-no-side-rails-on -the-steep-down-hill-turns kind of way. We were going to do the whole run, but decided after a few crashes and 2 crying kids that we would stop at the half way point. Here we are before our near-death ride:

So, we ditched the toboggans and put on our skis. We found a nice "training" hill that lots of kids and adults were doing. I tested it out and wasn't quite sure our kids (or Jason) could handle it. But Aidan wanted to try. So I took him down one time. He was scared and knocked us both down a few times, but we made it to the end of the run and he did really well on the tow rope going up again. I figured he was done. But, he wanted to try again! So I took him again and made him try a bit on his own with me in front of him. After his first "I can't do it!" statement, he made his first turn! Then, that was it. He went past me, nearly full speed all the way to the bottom making nice turns and all! He was so pumped!

Once he did it one time, he was a master! He went down at least 12 times, even trying out the mogul jumps a few times! He's talking all sorts of trash now. He knows he's better than me now. 30 mins was all it took to surpass me. Now he thinks he can hang with Chris and his boys when we go with them to Murren. (I don't think he's there yet, but he's got confidence!)

Once Aidan didn't need my help anymore (and frankly didn't want me holding him back), I tried to help Lainey. She was not such a quick and willing learner. We fell a few times and she was willing to just be left on the slope. I ended up taking of my skis and pulling her down. She did like the tow rope though! I think she'll be in Snowli Land for a while longer.

I can't believe Aidan. He's such a crazy kid. He swears he can't do something and refuses to be pushed, but then one day he decides to do something and can do it perfectly. He did it today with skiing, last summer with swimming and riding a bike. In December, he struggled to finish a 1.6K race, but yet ran 4.4K with Jason last weekend easily. He just gets it in his mind that he can't (or won't) do something, but then once he is pushed just a bit, he's amazing! I can't begin to say how proud I was watching him come down that slope today.


To finish up our Super Swiss Sunday, Aidan had a Rivella on the train back down and I made fondue for dinner. Today was a FANTASTIC day!

Here's a video of Aidan skiing. You can hear him saying "delete it! Turn it off!" because he wasn't happy with his run. Already the perfectionist!

Little Einsteins

The title of this post does not refer to the Disney cartoon by the same name. Nope, prepare yourself...I'm about to brag about my little Einsteins, Aidan and Delainey.

Aidan:
He started reading, really reading when he was just 3. He is now almost 6 1/2 and in grade one. He reads entire novels in one night. Judy Moody is his current favorite series and he read 2 of these books last week. One on Wednesday night and one on Thursday night. Each book was over 140 pages long.

He can also do math like a demon. He'll come up to me randomly during the day and say things like "345 + 63=408" or "did you know that 10 divided by 5 is 2?" or "a pentagon is called a pentagon because penta means 5 in Greek". I know some of this he's learning at school, but some he just figures out on his own. I often see him just sitting and thinking something through in his mind, then he says something like that. Then he moves on to build some Lego thing.

He's also a pretty darn good writer. Considering fine motor skills were never his strength and he's a young first grader, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked through his writing journal at school last week. He's got multiple page stories written with 90% spelling accuracy. I think when I taught second grade I had a few kids who could do that by the end of the year.

On all of his spelling tests this year he's gotten 100%. And his words are not "dog, the, and, cat". Nope here are a few of his spelling words so far: breakfast, healthy, dreadful, breath, please, exciting, elephant, and people.

Delainey:
She doesn't show much interest in reading, but can write every letter and number. She's been writing her name since she was 3 and it's not an easy one! Last week, she wrote a book to give her friend. She told me what she wanted to say and I spelled it for her, but she wrote every single letter. She worked on it for an hour.

Anytime she draws people, they are fully accessorized. Girls have not only arms and legs, but wear bracelets and high heels. Eyes have eyelashes (but only if they are girls).

She's quite quick with numbers as well. She struggles to count to 20 because she skips 13 (because coming from her 13 and 14 sound the same), but she has a lot of number sense. She can look at a group of items and instantly say there are 3 or 4 or 5 without counting. She recognizes these amounts easily and when I asked her how she knew there was 5 in a certain group (which was arranged like the 5 on dice) she said "Because there is one in the middle. If there wasn't one in the middle it would only be 4". Aidan likes to teach her addition facts so she'll now say out of the blue "Mommy, 2+2=4" when she sees 4 of something. Or she'll separate her peas at dinner into groups of 5 and 5 and then tell me "5+5=10".

She also has quite a mature vocabulary. She hears a word once then can use it properly in a sentence. For example, Aidan was reading his homework book to Lainey and me last week and didn't know what the word "reluctantly" meant. So I explained the meaning to him and used it in a sentence. A few days later, Lainey says to me at bedtime "Mommy, I am reluctantly going to bed now."

OK, I'm done bragging about my little Einsteins for now.

Only in Zurich

This morning, Lainey was invited to a birthday party at Gymboree (where every child in her class has had their party since we had hers there in October!). Her friend and classmate, Christopher is a local. His family is Swiss/German and live here permanently, they aren't ex-pats like most of her class.

Lainey is a very independent little girl and is very comfortable at Gymboree with the teachers since she went there every week last year. She knew all the kids at the party and has been going to drop-off birthdays for a while, so Jason and I figured we'd just drop her off and come back when the party was over, since Aidan had a birthday party this morning as well.

We weren't allowed to leave! The party boy's dad said to me in a very forceful German way "You cannot leave. You must stay. We have champagne." The Gymboree teacher was trying to help me and other parents who were planning to drop kids off. The dad had no part of us leaving. I had to go get Jason from the car and bring him in.

But, let me tell you, it was worth it for blog fodder. When we took off our coats we were handed glasses of champagne at 11am on a Sunday. Not mimosas, just champagne. Not just champagne, but DOM PERIGNON vintage 2000!!! Seriously. To quote my friend at the party "the champagne at this 4-year-old's birthday party probably cost more that a month's rent on my apartment!"

Only in Zurich do you go to a birthday party for a pre-schooler at Gymboree and get served Dom Perignon. So glad we had the first party there and could set the bar low.

Ski Lessons: Week 1

We survived our first round of ski lessons!

The kids' school sponsors ski lessons for a 5 week period at Hoch Ybrig ski resort about an hour away from Zurich. Aidan gets dropped off at the meeting point at 9:30am and skis all day. He even has lunch with the ski group. We pick him up at 3. Long day, but he's going to learn a lot and he really had fun despite the cold (around 15 degrees Fahrenheit). Yesterday, he didn't make it out of the kid area, but hopefully next week he'll advance to a T-bar bunny hill.

We didn't think Delainey would be able to ski due to her broken foot, but Thursday and Friday she was walking fine so we decided to see how she'd do. She said her boot felt fine, so we put her in the morning session of her lesson telling the instructor to call us if there was any problem. There wasn't. She was fine and had a blast with her friends. When we picked her up for lunch, she was tired but looking forward to going back for the afternoon session. She went on the "magic carpet" and skied down a tiny slope. I'm sure she'll be skiing circles around me by the end of the 5 weeks. (Evidence to support my theory: 2 of the girls from her class at school took lessons last year so they aren't in her group. They are in a group that is already on the T-bar and they were whizzing down the slope, slaloming past Jason and me. Did I mention they aren't even 4 years old yet!!??)

Jason and I practiced on the T-bar bunny slope with our friend Sam in the morning. We did pretty well and managed not to take out any kids in the process! Slowly and steadily we made it down 5 times. I was so worried about falling down and looking like a fool or hurting a child. I really want to learn and was a little nervous. Jason kept telling me to relax, but I have a little trouble with that concept.

After lunch, we paid for a lesson and our instructor took us up a blue hill! Our first REAL run! We did OK. Sam ran in to me and knocked me down once and I had a little incident with the T-bar not letting me get off (thank goodness I had on a helmet). Jason fell a few times and had trouble turning. Over all, we did pretty good for beginners!

By the time we drove home, we were knackered (my new favorite Brit word for really tired). By the time dinner and baths were done, my muscles were screaming. I layed down on the couch and could feel every muscle in my shoulders, back, and legs. Apparently, between being tense and nervous and falling twice (oh and skiing) I worked every muscle I have. I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30. Jason made me go to bed at 9, but he had to help me walk there. I hurt everywhere. I felt like I was the starting QB for an NFL team who got sacked 7 times and wasn't wearing pads.

We all slept until 8 this morning. I am still sore, but not as bad thanks to a really long hot shower. The others are fine. Not a sore muscle among them. My crazy husband even went for a 12K run this morning. I think I need to figuratively and literally loosen up a bit!

Daddy's Boy

Aidan is officially a "man". He now prefers to watch sports instead of cartoons. Twice this week, when I told him he could watch TV he found a football game on instead of cartoons.

Jason is so proud. Now they talk sport statistics over breakfast and cuddle up on the couch to watch a game.

Delainey shows some interest in sports,as well, by asking Aidan "Is Michigan State playing? Go green!" But if Aidan tells her it's not MSU, then she couldn't care less and asks him to change it to a kid show. (If is an MSU game, she puts on her cheerleading outfit :)

Nature vs. nurture...? Who knows, but I've got one who's 100% boy and one who's 100% girl.

Empathic to Extremes

Mommies always want to take the hurt away from their kids, right? I always say that I wish I was the one who was sick instead of one of my kids, then they wouldn't have the hurt. Well, yesterday I tested that theory.

I took the kids swimming, thinking that was something fun that Lainey could do even with her healing foot. We all had a great time, until Lainey wanted me to take her on the waterslide. At the end of the waterslide, there is a long metal part you have to walk through filled with water to get off. It's quite slippery so I was holding Lainey's hands and telling her to be careful and walk slowly so she doesn't slip. She listened and made it off safely. I, however, did not listen to my own advice and wasn't as slow and careful. I slipped and my toe curled under my foot.

Now, that toe (the same one Lainey broke!) is black and blue at the tip and kept me up all night hurting. I think I broke it! Talk about sympathy pains!! At least it's just the tip of it.

I think that the theory may have worked, though! I'm limping this morning and Lainey seems to be walking better than before. What a good mommy I am ;)-I'll take one for Team Barnett.