Back to school

Sadly, on August 25th, after 7 short weeks of summer vacation that included a lot of rainy days and a night in the hospital, school started again. If I thought school added chaos to my schedule in the States, here are the schedules I have to keep up with here.

Kindergarten: M,/T/Th/F 8:25-11 and T 1:30-3
First Grade: M/W/F 8:25-11:45, T/Th 8:25-11 and M/T/Th/F 1:30-3

I also have to remember that Alex goes to the pool on Mondays and Ruby goes on Tuesdays. And in case that doesn't fill up my brain, on Thursday Alex has to be dropped off at the bus stop to take a bus to another town for an art class.

In Switzerland there are two years of kindergarten and so kids start at the age of 4. This meant that Ruby, who might be the smallest kindergartener ever, is in her first year of school.

Alex started first grade this year. After a rocky end to school last year, we were unsure how things would work out.

Don't let these cute smiles fool you. The first day didn't go off without a hitch. We decided the night before that I would take Alex and Pete would take Ruby, since she was the youngest and would need a French speaker to help her. The problem with this plan was that my French is not very good and I didn't understand half of what Alex's teacher said to me. Here's a breakdown of the day.
*Ruby would not get off of Pete's lap and decided that she didn't want to go to school after all. Luckily, another English speaking dad overheard her and introduced his English speaking son to her.
*Alex came home for lunch practically in tears and informed me that I didn't buy him the right school supplies. In my defense, a lot of the things on the list don't have an English translation because they don't exist in the US. Not to mention, I couldn't figure out why in the world a first grader would need-not one but-TWO permanent black markers!
*Around 1:45pm I received a call from Alex's teacher wondering why Alex was not back in school. I had assumed that he went back at 2pm like last year when in fact it had changed to 1:30pm. The teacher had reminded everybody in the morning, but I of course had not understood.

Since that first day 2 weeks ago, I would love to say that things have settled down and we have figured everything out. Unfortunately that would be a lie. Here are a few high/low lights:

*Unfortunately on Thursday I forgot it was bus day and sent Alex to school instead of the bus stop. I received another call from his teacher (who must think I'm a moron by now) that I would need to pick him up and drive him there.

*Alex came home one day and told me that he needed his books covered. So I covered the 3 text books he had with the plain side of a grocery bag just like my mom taught me. Apparently in Switzerland, every book needs to be covered, including small paperback notebooks (think about the bluebook you used for college exams)....and here they cover them with stuff that is like wrapping paper. In the end I covered 13 books and went through 2 rolls of wrapping paper!

*Another day I received a call from Alex's teacher telling me that I needed to come pick him up early... not because he was in trouble but because he had blood running down his forehead. He was playing soccer at recess and had a small accident. Fortunately is was a small little gash that didn't require stitches.

*At the beginning of week 2 Ruby decided that she was done with school. Every day this week has begun with Ruby crying about having to go. This culminated in an all out sob-fest on Thursday when Ruby was crying so hard that she choked and threw up. We called her in sick that day.
Tomorrow is Monday and we have another chance at redemption...and if nothing else, the countdown to fall break has officially begun.