Good Morning An der Wietze

(I don't have pictures to fit this topic, so these will have to do for now!)

Today is Tuesday. John’s alarm rang at 5:20 or so, and he pushed snooze as usual. When it rang the second time, we heard another sound after he turned it off--Henry crying for us. He has been having a hard time getting to sleep lately, and wakes up easily in the morning. We’ve tried a towel at the bottom of the door to hide the light, and even stuffed the keyhole with tissue paper. He still manages to hear something. John turned on Henry’s cd again and tucked him in and told him he could get up when the CD ended, which would be about an hour. I slept for a few more minutes, then got up to start the day.

I have not adjusted to coffee here yet. For a while we had a good Starbucks stash, and there is a Starbucks by the main train station in Hannover, but it is so expensive. I thought I should try out some different kinds here. A new friend of mine who is German and lived in California for 20 years said they used to line their suitcases with packages of coffee from Tchibo, coffee you can find easily here but not in the U.S. I currently have coffee from Tchibo and it is the best I’ve found here, but I guess I’m just a Starbucks girl.

With coffee in hand I snatched a few minutes to read from an Advent devotional that we are going through. It has portions for children and portions for adults. Devotions as a family is something that has always been important to us, even though we never feel that we get it quite right. The most recent dilemma is that I want to get the children to bed before 7:30, but we aren’t starting dinner until 6:40 or so. So “devotions” becomes a hurried affair with no one really enjoying it or happy about it except sometimes Henry who gets to play with the Little People Nativity scene while we are reading. It seemed that we were the incarnation of “doing devotions,” a phrase which always bothers me but is one that we seem to use. How do you “do devotions”? Is that merely going through the motions? Or is that acceptable? How do we shift to “devoting ourselves to prayer and thanksgiving” or “devoting ourselves to God”? Well, I don’t know if we made progress last night, but John pointed out that we should just have our bible story time, singing and prayer and not worry about how long it takes, but do it completely. For last night, that worked. The story was Jacob’s ladder and Elisabeth noticed the difference between Jacob’s ladder (angels coming down to us) and the tower of Babel (man trying to get to God). Yep, that about sums it up. All our efforts get us nowhere. We are rejoicing that God came down.

Back to this morning--I was dressed by 6:35 and it was past time to wake up Elisabeth. On the weekends she is up on her own by 7 AM, but getting her up 30 minutes earlier for school is hard these days. Plus she has a cold. She didn’t want to get up. Before she had made much progress, Henry was up, pointing out that his Mozart CD was too long. Somehow it became a dragging morning and we were all running a little late for breakfast.

In The Woodlands I used to make oatmeal every other morning, and we’d have cold cereal (with or without milk) on the others. Or sometimes eggs. But now eggs is dinnertime food and oatmeal is a weekend treat (treat for some). These days we eat various combinations of Master Crumbles (our favorite granola), Tappas (aka Frosted Mini Wheats--it is exactly the same, except for the name), Shreddies (Wheat Chex, again only a name difference), and muesli (for me). This morning I got Elisabeth’s order all mixed up. She wanted Shreddies and Master Crumbles. I added Mini Wheats which she frowned on. I don’t get it--yesterday she loved them. Fortunately she didn’t want milk, so she easily picked them out. When she was done Henry came over to her seat and ate them. By the time it was 7:10 I was getting anxious. Snowsuits, coats, hats, gloves, boots etc. take time to put on and I did not want Elisabeth to miss the tram. She was finishing getting ready and I was calling and calling. Poor girl--she was taking care of business. Finally she came down and I tried not to scold as she moseyed along with her socks, but then she said, “I can always take the 52 tram” (meaning the 7:52 as opposed to the 7:42). “But Elisabeth, I don’t want to take you this morning! You have to catch the 42 so you can go with Izzy or Sophia.” How could I say those words to Elisabeth? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with her, I just didn’t want to spend 90 minutes walking, riding in the tram, walking, riding in the tram . . .on the one day when I could be home all day! I was hoping to have Henry walk so I could pull my little grocery bag on wheels (okay, it is a suitcase, yes, but it almost looks like the grocery bags on wheels they carry here and I just haven’t bought a real one yet) and we could load up on groceries this morning. But by the time all the boots, hats, gloves, jackets etc. were on, it was nearly 7:30 and I panicked (my watch is a bit fast, but I never know quite how fast. I should fix that). How my time is precious to me! So I pushed Henry in the stroller, getting stuck in only a few icy, snowy parts. We saw the 7:32 tram leaving at just the right time and I gave Elisabeth a high five and thanked her for rushing. I’m sure she’s figured me out. I often panic and then relax when the end is in sight. When we got to the tram I found out that the girl she usually rides with was not going today, and my heart began to beat faster, thinking I’d have to go into town after all. But then we saw Sophia and I breathed a sigh of relief. Elisabeth climbed into the tram and I walked down a bit to wave at her and blow her a kiss through the window. And there she went. Funny how I’ve gotten so used to sending her off like this.

I had Henry walk a bit so we could get over the chunked icy parts and we went on to the Lidl, the discount grocery store. I used the stroller as my grocery cart and Henry helped me by picking out cookies, tomatoes etc. There were other things he wanted of course, but I always had the excuse that we didn’t have room for anymore. He was looking at the sausages and meats and said, “Oh, can we have crinkle cut salami?” I had no idea what he was talking about, but there it was--salami cut thickly with crinkle cut edges, just like the carrots. How could I say no?

As we left the store he asked if we could stop at the bakery and get a roll. This is a tradition that started in Celle and is pretty hard to drop. I was about to tell him that he’d had a lot of treats lately and we couldn’t keep paying for extra rolls etc, but then I thought of how I like to have a cup of coffee and that is always at least twice as much. So I gave in. He knew just what he wanted too--ein Igel (pronounced eagle)--a hedgehog! It is a slightly sweet roll with peaks on top, just like a hedgehog. Sometimes they have raisins for eyes. Since my mom once saw a hedgehog ambling by our patio, I have a soft spot reserved for them. So I got an extra one for Elisabeth, and then some rolls for our dinner tonight. One of my favorites are Kurbiskorn--pumpkin seed rolls. Then I pulled out my wallet and it was empty except for some change. I also had 2 Euro in my pocket. I wasn’t sure how much it would be, but I managed to have just enough, down to the last penny. Money leaks out of my wallet these days. In the U.S. I am not above using a credit card for a $3 purchase (paid right away of course) but that doesn’t fly here. Cash, cash, cash. We are getting a piano on Friday and it will be cash only. We are talking about quite a few bills here. Anyway, just as I was ordering and paying, a friend came in so I knew she could spot me a bit if needed. Henry happily ate his Igel as we chatted and felt so German--finding friends in the bakery.

We were home by 8:45. Along the way home we passed our neighbor, a woman in her 70s, very elegant in a long wool coat and a warm scarf over her head. When she saw Henry in the stroller she said, “Is this a lazy boy?” I felt sheepish and a bit defensive at the same time. He had been walking most of the way home, but he was beginning to go slowly, so I said he could ride a bit. Soon after that I kicked him out so I could put the groceries back in, and also so I could push the stroller. It was getting hard with the icy snow.

Our road is plowed, but the small part of our street that our house is on is not plowed, I guess because it is a small side street. The sidewalks must be shoveled and are the responsibility of the owner. If someone were to fall on our sidewalk in front of our house and get hurt, they could sue us. Our sidewalk looks great. Unfortunately there are some empty lots on our street, so the sidewalks are messy. I’m not sure what would happen if I were to slip and fall and get hurt there. When it is really bad I just walk in the street. Who would get sued if I got hit by a car? I’m sure someone has it all figured out.

It being Tuesday it was an at home morning for Henry. He is a bit more settled in the routine of Kindergarten Monday, Wednesday, Fridays and home on Tuesday and Thursday. Not everyone here understands why I do that, and sometimes I don’t understand either, but it is best to go with what I have decided at some saner point in my day, week or month. So this morning we alternated between crafts and books together, and me cleaning while Henry played. I happily made space for our used upright piano which will be delivered on Friday. Elisabeth is excited to play again and maybe she’ll be working on some Christmas carols soon.

That being said, I suddenly remembered a list of things to do: call piano teachers (we hope to have her resume lessons in January), get tickets to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (portions) for Sunday, find dr. for Henry’s well visit . . .amazing I even sat down to write at all!

Einen schönen Adventszeit!

(A lovely Advent!)