Well, Martinmas was adorable, all these herds of kids ringing the doorbell and launching into song the minute I opened it. There is… quite a wide variety of songs to choose from!

The Sniglet went with his friend (yes! He has a friend, whom I haven’t told you about yet! I should get to that!) and some neighbor kids whom I haven’t met yet – I’ve rung the doorbell a few times, but no one was home. Anyway, he went out with them and I probably should have gone too, but I kinda felt that for our first Martinmas, we should participate fully, i.e. someone should be home to cheer the singers and hand out candy. And DrBob is out of town at a(NOTHER) conference, and leaving Ignatz home alone with a giant bowl of candy? There is no universe in which that is a good idea.

Song du jour of the day: Everlasting Love, by Love Affair. I saw a lobster singing this song in a bottled water commercial this evening.

Right, so I’ve written before about Halloween in Germany, and how I love the holiday but don’t think it survived the transfer to Germany intact, right? And I may have mentioned that DrBob HATES Halloween, thinks sending kids door-to-door to beg for candy is just the antithesis of everything right and good and true, and no matter how many times I tell him “it’s not begging, they are Evil Spirits who must be propitiated,” he’s having none of it.

SO now here we are in the Netherlands, and he said, late last month (several times), that he didn’t think Dutch culture would have any kind of tolerance for kids going door-to-door and begging for free stuff, maybe something about stalwart protestants, I dunno, I’d stopped listening by then. Anyhoo, we didn’t get any trick-or-treaters (“of course not,” said DrBob, “the Dutch would never put up with kids begging door-to-door” all right all right ALL RIGHT), end of story.

Oh but no. Today I ran into a neighbor, Annemarie, at the bakery, and she said “Do you know about tomorrow? Since you’re new here I thought you might not – it’s Sint Maarten, does the Sniglet want to go with us?” Go with you where? “Oh, the kids go door-to-door and sing songs and you give them candy.”

Ha. HA! HAHAHAHAHA! DrBob is SO PWNED!

Song du jour of the day: Bruce Willis, by Kabat

So today was the first day of my intensive Dutch course, all the way on the other side of town, twenty whole minutes by bicycle, oh the agony! (Before, it was 20 minutes to the train station, buy the ticket, wait wait wait, 40 minutes to East Station in Munich, and then at least a 10-minute subway ride to anything interesting, so this is something of an improvement.)

Aaaand what can I say? It’s a Dutch class. I took about 10 lessons before we moved, and I’ve been here two months, so I already knew everything in today’s lesson, but of course that won’t stay true. Classmates seem nice enough, teacher seems nice enough, building is your typical academic thingy, all beautiful brick and big windows on the outside, institutional linoleum and ugly furniture on the inside. They gave us a free binder! And a notebook, and a clicky-pen! Not bad for €1025, eh?

That’s right. I said €1025. They better run out of stuff I already know pretty quick, is all I’m sayin’.

Oh! And in the welcome-to-the-Netherlands department, I had my first bike crash today! Lost control of the bike, hit the pavement BAM! and that was it. No other people involved, no serious injury, though a man did stop to see if I needed help. Very nice of him, but thankfully not necessary. Aside from a scuff-mark on one of my gloves, I am unscathed.

Song du jour of the day: Everybody Wants to Rule the World, by Tears for Fears.

… in Utrecht! Not the last, we hope. DrBob bought tickets for the Sniglet’s 9th birthday, and today we went to see FC Utrecht (ranked 5th) beat SC Heerenveen (ranked 15th), but, um, they didn’t.

I mean, the game was the closest home-game to the Sniglet’s birthday (I think), so that was a factor, but we also specifically chose a game where our team had a decent chance at winning, because we thought it would be more fun if our team won, for once. For once!

But no.

Well, they did manage to zoop from 0-3 up to 2-3 in the last ten minutes of the game, so that was exciting. And the guys behind us were hilarious – they kept yelling things like “Run, Forrest!” and “TIMMEH!” and singing, and shouting advice to the players, which, since we were in Row 2, I’m pretty sure the players could hear. And the stadium is good, and we can cycle there, and the tickets are affordable and the food isn’t completely dreadful, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be back.

And then we went home and ordered dinner on the internet, and a man on a scooter brought tacos to our door.

So all in all, a pretty good day. Though it would have been better if our team had won. For once.

Song du jour of the day: Suddenly Strange, by Bic Runga.

It’s only fair, since we addressed Ignatz’s academic stuff yesterday. So the Sniglet is going to a Taalschool, a school specifically created to teach Dutch to kids who don’t already speak it because they are all Strangey McForeignpants.

On one hand, as an American, I think (brace yourself for a shockeroo) our way is better: having an ESL class for an hour a day, and otherwise mainstreaming the kids, allows them to get a jump on making friends with the people they’ll be in school with for the next however-many years. Snig’ll be at this school until Christmas, or possibly until July, and then he’ll have to start over again in a new school.

On the other hand, they could approach it like the Germans: speak only German in class, and then get all confused when the foreign kids flunk their exams. And then conclude that foreigners are just not very smart.

So it could be worse. It seems like a nice school, it has a cheerful atmosphere. Snig’s already gotten in trouble for fighting twice, but, um, well, he does that. Never thought I’d say this, but twice in two months is pretty good, for him. And of course his teachers are miles better than the ones he had in Germany (that was just bad luck, I think, because Ignatz’s German teachers were mostly terrific). Yeah, teachers. One of them is somehow ill? So she teaches half the week and then his class has a different teacher on Thursdays and Fridays. They are both very nice, very concerned, very good teachers, but I just don’t think that’s a good arrangement for kids – if it were, they’d do it with every class, not just this one – and it does rather make me think that the Sniglet’s bad luck with school hasn’t changed.

But those two problems aside, it’s a good place, with good people. I think. I just asked the Sniglet what he thinks, and he says he doesn’t like it. When I asked why, he said “Because I don’t like it.” Not very helpful, but probably temporary. He changes his mind a lot.

Song du jour of the day: Somedays, by Regina Spektor.

Well. He’s been there a little over two months now, how’s it going? We met the class “mentor,” who is the school’s German teacher – I suspect he was put in her class on purpose, how very thoughtful of someone. He seems cheerful enough, does his homework without too much nagging, and doesn’t complain too bitterly about any of his teachers or about having to get up early. His German school used to send letters, through the actual mail, to complain about him, one or two lines about how he was misbehaving and we should talk to him – you know how much I loved those – and we didn’t get any from this new school, so we were sort of cautiously optimistic about it.

Then, in early October, we got this nice long email from the mentor, full of… insights! And questions! Honest questions, like “what do you think about this?”, not like “what the hell is wrong with you people?” (okay, the German teachers never actually said that, but it was frequently implied). She had a few observations about his behavior and progress, wanted to know if some things were basic personality features, a cultural difference, or perhaps anger over the move, and said “I have the impression that Ignatz doesn’t like talking to grown-ups,” which I thought was hilariously apt. I never really thought of it that way before, but it really was bang on target.

Anyway, we answered the questions – no, not a cultural thing, no, if he’s mad about the move he’s hiding it really well, yes, we’ve seen this problem before, and also that one, and here’s what we think causes it. Okey-dokey.

Then, just last night, I was joking with DrBob about how we’ve never gone this long without getting a complaint from the school before and I was starting to worry. And just this morning, there was a brief email from the mentor to say hey, Ig’s doing a lot better, getting along with his classmates, communicating and participating and yay.

Well.

Um.

Wow.

Song du jour of the day: Clap Hands, by Tom Waits.

I could play with this for days! Am I the only person here who thinks this is totally and utterly awesome?

I am, aren’t I?

Ahem.

h/t Andrew at German Joys.

Song du jour of the day: The Magic Number, by De La Soul.

Well there’s real truth, and then there’s bureaucratic truth. Remember for my residence permit we had to prove we’re married using a marriage certificate that is less than three months old? Even though our marriage is considerably more than three months old? Yeah, well, we also had to prove that our kids are ours, and the real truth – use your eyes, Ignatz looks like DrBob with my nose photoshopped on, who else’s kid could he possibly be? – is not sufficient.

So DrBob phoned Pasing (suburb of Munich) and they mailed him a special apostilled certified extracted official copy of Ig’s birth certificate, and then I filled out a form and sent a check and self-addressed envelope to Kevin with detailed instructions about buying stamps to mail it to Wisconsin and more stamps for the Wisconsin people to mail it to me here and then waited and jittered for way more time than you’d think would be necessary if you’d paid the extra 150% for expedited service for Snig’s special apostilled certified extracted official copy of a birth certificate, and finally – FINALLY! – today we went to the city office-thingy and had our kids officially declared to be really and bureaucratically our kids (can I get a sheesh?).

And we devoutly hope there will be no more stupid pointless hoops to jump through. But we secretly doubt it.

Song du jour of the day: Don’t Cry, by Asia. Look! A mullet and a headband! It’s like the 80s squared!

Ah me, I love it when the comments provide blogfodder. Amy sez:

Ambivalent about Where the Wild Things Are. I’ve heard it’s too scary to take young children to, and I wonder, then, what’s the point? Because I was excited to bring my boys. (I like In the Night Kitchen better anyway.)

Yeah, I’d heard that Maurice Sendak had a few words for people who thought it was too scary for kids, and there was a follow-up article as well – well, more than one, probably, but that’s the one I read. Both articles made a point that I tend to agree with, which is that childhood is a much darker time than grown-ups remember, and while they should be sheltered from many things, they can handle some scary – in fact, they need to be able to confront their fears in a safe environment.

So I would be very skeptical of any claim that it’s too scary for all kids, by which I don’t mean kids of all ages because yes I know older kids can handle more than younger kids; I mean kids of all characters. There are kids like Ignatz, who at 7 explained to me that Nemo’s mom and siblings had to die in the first scene of Finding Nemo, because if they hadn’t there wouldn’t be a story. Then there are kids like the Sniglet, who used to cry anytime someone on the TV looked sad.

I think the cardinal rule here would be Know Your Kid – know what their fears are, what they’re coping with. I was a nervous child, and the end of Bambi was completely overwhelming for me. The fact that, when I saw it, I hadn’t seen my own mother in two years? Yeah, that probably didn’t help, although to be honest, I bet I would have freaked out anyway. I tend to inhabit movies a little too much, which is why I could never be a movie reviewer, because there are whole genres I can’t cope with, even now.

I read that Where the Wild Things are has a violent father-figure and a smothering mother-figure. I think that’s more helpful than a sweeping “not for kids,” because then I get to decide whether these are issues in our family that might be problematic for my kids, and maybe I should screen it first. So I think the second rule would be that reviewers should not decide what is or is not for all children, but should indicate what sort of themes are addressed.

Not that I disagree with Amy in any way: I just used her comment as a jumping-off point. Thanks, Amy!

Song du jour of the day: Endlich ein Grund zur Panik (Finally, a Reason to Panic), by Wir sind Helden.

… living in the suburbs for eight years, was movies. Yeah, our town didn’t have a movie theater. They could have four grocery stores at the same end of town, but no movie theater, thanks a lot people. So I know it sounds trivial, but I really did want to live somewhere where I could go to the movies without having to spend more time traveling to and from the cinema than I spent in it.

That said, have I been to the movies once since we moved here? Nope. I missed the 6th Harry Potter movie (actually I’m really ambivalent about the movies, but I still think I should see them all). I couldn’t convince the Sniglet to go see Up with me – what can I say, he’s a strange child.

But Where the Wild Things Are. I can’t wait. But I’m trying not to get so excited that the movie will be a letdown. But zomg zomg zomg, that and Jabberwocky are the only things I can recite off the top of my head even half asleep or mostly drunk. Oh, and the preamble to the United States Constitution, thank you Schoolhouse Rock. But I digress.

I totally pink-puffy-sparkly HEART the book. I’m a little bummed that it’s Warner Brothers doing the movie, because now if I recite a line or two of the story to my kids at a bus stop I’ll probably get sued, and actually I hate WB for doing that to most of the things I really like, but of course I have to forgive them because I can’t NOT see this movie.

I wonder when it’ll get here.

Song du jour of the day: you know, I haven’t been very musicky lately. The last time I bought new music was… was… um… I can’t remember that far back. So here’s a blast from my long-ago past: One Was Johnny, by Really Rosie.

Damn, I’m old.