Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

Yesterday on the way home from Kindergarten Henry cheerfully told me, “Mama, I got to eat in the kitchen and do Tisch Dienst.”   I thought I was Mommy. What is Tisch Dienst? This happens more and more often as our son is immersed in Kindergarten five days a week and I can’t help but think it is cute.  However, being the educator that I am, I usually repeat things back the proper way.  This time first I had to ask what Tisch dienst was.  It means setting the table--literally “Table Service.”  I asked him to tell me what he had to do to set the table and I was hoping he would tell me all the utensils in German, but amazingly his mind made the switch and it came out easily in English.  And so very cutely.  I’m rather enamored by my son lately.  Here’s one of my favorites: “Today Emil was before lunch abgeholt.” In German if you have a verb with 2 parts--here it is past tense--the second verb is always the last word of the sentence...

Ready for the woods! My neighbor asked me if I had someone to clean my windows.  I wondered if that was a hint.  I cleaned them in 2 rooms and then went for a bike ride.  It was a good morning. A German friend, Evie, who married an American and then lived in the US for seven years was telling another German friend, Steph, if she’d heard of “German Chocolate Cake.”  “What?!”  Steph looked bewildered.  Evie explained: “It is a chocolate sponge cake.  You know how American cakes always have an icing on them?  Well this icing is a mixture of pecans and coconut.”  Stephanie looked disgusted.  I guess it would be like telling a Frenchman about “French Toast.” Zooming! He was so excited about it that he rode it in the rain. Henry got a new bike.  We were fortunate to buy it second hand from a Kindergarten friend who noticed that his was rather small.  So now 3 of the four of us are zooming around on German bikes.  His is co...

Some of you have heard me complain and cry about Henry’s Kindergarten experience.  It has certainly had its ups and downs.  But right now we are in an UP and I’m grateful.  For the last week or so, as soon as we come back from taking Elisabeth to the tram to meet her middle school buddies who accompany her to school, Henry asks me, “When can we leave?  Will I have time to play?”  Morgenkreis or Morning Circle is at 9:00 and that is the official beginning of Kindergarten, but he can arrive any time after 7:30.  It starts getting busier between 8:20 and 9:00.  So these days we are sure to leave the house by 8:30 and sometimes earlier so Henry has “time to play.”  It makes me chuckle because he has time to play all morning, but there is something special to him about getting there before the bells ring.  I asked him if he wanted me to bring him right after taking Elisabeth to the tram.  That would be a bit before 8:00, but I think he still ...

I’m marveling over our budding bilingual boy. It’s true that he is not bilingual yet, but I am fascinated by the changes going on in our household. This happens all the time, I know, but it is a different feeling to experience it first hand. I guess I feel like the parent of a newborn who exclaims, “She pursed her lips and cooed! It was so amazing!” I have known several bilingual children over the years--friends who grew up in Mexico and whose children have always been speaking Spanish and English, friends who moved from the Netherlands to the U.S. when their oldest was two are among those was around more. I remember when he didn’t know any English, but then gradually he knew more and more, but I didn’t get to watch it so close up. In these two examples the parents were already fluent in English, so it only seemed natural that their kids would become fluent in English. They told me they didn’t speak English at home, but I don’t think I really believed them. As late as 2 week...

Pictured: Henry on a fair ride Henry on his favorite scooter at Kindergarten. Round and round and round. . . Ich musse schreiben wann ich am feeling good about things. That is about how my German goes. I get half way through a sentence and then get stuck. I need to learn words like happy, kind, and try. I think those are words I want to use often, but cannot. Today was the third day that I took Henry to kindergarten. This is a five minute walk from our house and it is affiliated with the Lutheran church we visited last Sunday. The director asked me to stay with him for the “settling in period” which could be, she said, up to two weeks. That surprised me when I first heard it back in August, but now I am starting to understand. The first three days there have followed the pattern of much of our transition. One day is great, the next is discouraging, and by the third there is a light. The structure of the kindergarten is very different from pre-school here. There are aspect...