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Showing posts from November, 2014

A month later

We've been in Germany for a month now.  It's definitely been up and down, but overall no regrets.  The boys are in school.  Well, 2 of them.  Anton is still doing his "settlement period."  On Monday they are going to try to put him down for a nap, I am not too optimistic that he'll sleep but it's a start. We are also moving into our new home on Monday.  We actually get the keys on Saturday and will move all of the stuff from this apartment over the weekend, and the truck with our stuff is supposed to arrive at 8:30 sharp.  There is also a lot of other stuff that is happening Monday and Tuesday.  Internet and phone set up is supposed to happen on Monday, washer and dryer along with installation are coming Tuesday, and I guess as part of our move a handyman is coming Tuesday morning to install some lights. That means we have to buy most, if not all, the lights on Saturday and Monday nights.  Everything is closed on Sunday. We are absolutely ready to move out

New misc

It's that there is nothing to write, it's more like there is no time when I am not exhausted to write about them so here goes a bit of random ... Anton dropped 40" LCD onto his head.  Anton is fine, LCD - not so much.  And since it's a rental place, we have to replace it for around 479 euros.  We are going to keep the broken one and try to see if we can fix it but since we are moving out of here in a week, we just need to have it replaced. When I came to United States, somehow all my family managed to pack in terms of shoes were none, the only shoes I had were the ones on my feet.  Apparently, some things are genetic but I managed to do a little better.  I managed to pack 2 pairs of slippers for myself!  Thus, for the last month I've only been wearing one pair of tennis shoes and I am really tired of them.  The rest of my family fared a little better with an average of 4 pairs. Speaking of thing we never packed - thermometer!  When your kid has been sick for t

How we spent our Sunday

Anton has had bronchitis for about 2 weeks now and it felt like it was getting better with him barely coughing.  Somehow over the last 24 hours he has really went down the hill with constant coughing, attempts to throw up and wheezing.  Saturday night going into Sunday morning Anton slept from about 8PM to midnight and then again from 1AM to around 4AM at which point he was coughing really bad and having trouble catching his breath between the coughing.  After about an hour of deliberation and a couple of phone calls, Anton and I headed out into the dark Frankfurt night to find German Children's Hospital. Thankfully, Anton fell asleep on our drive which was about 20-25 minutes long.  Then we get to where GPS is telling me the hospital should be and I don't really see anything that resembles a hospital.  Kind of out of options as it's 6AM I parked the car, got Anton into a stroller, and walked into a building that had some lights on.  They, thankfully, spoke some English a

Anton starting his new preschool

Anton has started "settlement period" at his new school here in Germany.  I have to preface it with the fact that he goes to the same school as the other boys but in the preschool/nursery part of it.  Here is what I was told about the process - first there is a meeting between a parent and teachers to get all information regarding the child.  Then for 4 days a parent is going into the classroom and it's just one of the teachers, parent (me in this case) and Anton are in the room together for an hour.  After that I am allowed to leave the room for about 15 minutes at a time slowly increasing time for Anton to stay in the room by himself. Now what really happened.  We met with the teacher, I stayed with him for one day and on day 4 he spent 3.5 hours at preschool all by himself (well, with other kids and teachers but without me).    He did absolutely awesome, never cried even when I left.  His teachers are shocked at how fast his "integration" is going.  At this

Apartment search

While Chris was here in Germany all by himself in the beginning of October, he found several interesting housing options that we are now trying to see and decide what works best for us. Hopefully this is not a typical German story but here it goes ...  We have decided on a house to rent and made an offer on Monday.  It was originally accepted but then after a little bit we got a word that there might be another offer on the table.  On Tuesday we heard that the landlord wants to meet the family and after some back and forth it was decided that only Chris needs to go and I will stay at the house with the kids (meeting was at 6:15PM).  At about 6:25 Chris called me and said that apparently the actual landlord is 24 year old girl and wants to meet everybody.  At this point I got really mad but went along with it.  It was the most awkward meeting where I was rather pissed and wasn't about to idle chit chat.  Anyway, this morning we heard that they decided to pass because they didn'
This was written about a week ago but never published due to no internet issues. Monday night.   Internet is down.   We couldn’t locate the router so Chris emailed the landlord from his work phone which is connected to the German systems, whatever they are. Today was the first day when I stayed home with all 3 boys by myself in the “foreign land.”   We survived and actually had a pretty good day.   I went to explore our neighborhood with the boys.   We stopped by a cell phone place so hopefully I will get myself a working cell phone by Wednesday, just have to take a look at a different provider and make sure that we can break the contract when needed.   We also stopped by some bakery for a snack.   German donuts – not so good.   German M&M cookies – loved by all the boys. I have also learned a lot about German way to do laundry.   I am very grateful to have a washer and a dryer in the apartment but they are tiny!     I was doing laundry nearly every day in the USA but here it’

Little stuff ...

Life's little annoyances, just some bullet points. No microwave.  I never thought of myself to use microwave too much but sometimes it can really be useful so yes, I miss that. Our rental car starts without having to put the key in.  One would think it's not a big deal.  Becomes a big deal when I drop Chris off at work and he walks away with the said key in his pocket.  It essentially means that I can't turn the car off until I get the key. Here is a surprising one - everything here is German! and I don't find the language that pleasant to the ear. Hopefully this will change as I learn the language. Some pictures from the park last week:

Visit to boys new school

On Friday we went to see the new school that all 3 boys will be going to.  Name - Die Kinderzeit.  I liked it.  It's a German private school which is structured a bit differently from what we are used to.  One of the reasons we choose this particular school is because there is a German and an English teacher in every classroom.  The classes are also integrated with children from 1 to 4th grade eing in the same room.  Altogether there are 4 classrooms.  Andrei and Ilya will both be going to first grade and will work on the materials at their own pace.  The school has the most amazing outside space.  It's a huge green space with some playground equipment and a tee pee.  I'd be lying if I wasn't a little concerned with both boys going to be in the same classroom but the school said that they would be willing to split them up over the summer if there are problems. We ran into a little problem with Anton.  Originally, he was supposed to go to preschool type of a group at t