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...

Our hearts have been stretched, we recently found out, but it happened slowly.   Poverty, food shortage, contaminated water, starvation--these words bring images to my mind of children with bulging bellies and scarred skin.  They were problems a million miles away that I thought could do nothing about, so I put up a mental wall of protection.  If I saw pictures or heard pleas for help, I would ignore them, thinking it was too big of a problem for me to deal with, or I justified my inaction with the idea that the funds were most likely not going to get to those who needed the help, and even if they did, it would be a drop in a bucket.  I had heard for years about “sponsoring a child” from Africa or India or the like.  It never moved me. When I was 33 and our daughter was almost two years old, I suffered a miscarriage of twins.  At the time it was the most devastating event of my life.  My husband and I mourned their loss and couldn’t help bu...

Henry woke up early on St. Nicholas' Day.  John was upstairs so he was the one to talk with Henry and send him back to bed, as it was not yet 6:30 AM wake up time.   “Daddy, I had a bad dream.” “Aww, did you?” “Yes.  Daddy, is St. Nikolaus dead?” John answered that yes, he is dead. “Oh.  Then who will put something in my boot?”  he asked worriedly. “Well, who else loves you?” With a bright smile, “Mommy and Daddy!” Then he went back to bed.  John related the story to me before Henry got up again, and I was relieved that all our uncertainties of the night before were resolved.  I guess I imagined that since he knew we loved him, he knew we had filled his boot. Elisabeth was not such an early riser as Henry, but nor was Henry overly anxious to check his boot.  I had to remind him that it was available.  I managed to have him and Elisabeth get dressed before they went downstairs--it was still a school morning after all....

This evening I was fixing dinner and suddenly Henry cried out, “You have to clean my boots!”  I said, “I have to?  I think you have to.”  “Okay, but can you help me?”  He went and got Elisabeth and I gave them a brush and a rag, and they got to work.  I thought it was a really cute scene, the two of them cleaning their boots for St. Nikolaus.  I’ve never made it a point to foster our children’s belief in Santa Claus, but the St. Nikolaus tradition somehow seemed more grounded in reality, maybe because his name wasn’t changed around so much.  Last year Elisabeth asked if she could put out her boots and I said sure.  So this year they took it for granted that they would do so again, and so did I.  I just sort of figured they knew I filled the boots. Boot Cleaning The kids were cleaning away, and I’ve never seen Henry so concerned about the cleanliness of his boots.  Then suddenly he cried out, “What if my boots aren’t cle...

Reflecting the Setting Sun (photo by Meredith Stone) Our trip to Süd Tirol feels like a long time ago now--John has left for two trips since we returned from our family trip.  We are getting back into our routines again.  But in my mind’s eye I can still see the light gray Dolomites surging up against the backdrop of a blue sky, green mountains spreading down in the foreground.   Our Approach Road (see first post about Süd Tirol)-photo by Meredith Stone Rittnerhorn Summit (photo by Ralph Stone) We took a few hikes with the children.  The one I most wanted to do turned out to be only the prelude to what became my favorite. We took a cable car to the start of the hike, and then hiked the rest of the way up to the 2260 meter summit.  We had a gorgeous day for this, but it turned out to be steeper than I had thought.  Elisabeth had no trouble.  Henry kept on pretty well but I was quite grateful that he needed to stop and rest as much as he d...

On our first morning in S ü d Tirol, the kids woke us up at 7 AM.  It was very dark in our apartment, since we had closed the exterior shutters, and there were no night lights, so we were all sort of stumbling around.  The bathroom is one step up from the rest of the apartment, and there are thresholds to step over from one room to the next.  Any bruises we have may be a result of that.  The next nights we didn’t bother to close the shutters.  Those of us living on the plains need reminders of what a mountain morning in October is like.  There’s no bright sun streaming into your room at 7 AM. Once we were up I suddenly had a brilliant idea that we should go outside to see the sunrise.  I quickly made coffee, got dressed and everyone bundled up so we wouldn’t miss it.  Our hostess, Maria, saw us leaving and commented on our early rising.  When John told her that we were going to see the sunrise, I wonder if she laughed a little. There we were...

We just returned from a week in Süd Tirol, Italy.  Americans say, “Where?”  Germans say, “Oh, I went there last summer” or “Oh, I grew up going there.”  Or, “Oh, we have been there every year for the last 3 years.  The kids love it.”  So along with all the Germans we went to the German speaking part of Northern Italy. Süd Tirol used to belong to Austria, hence the German.  Everyone said the German would sound different, and sometimes I really noticed the difference, but I don’t speak German well enough to be able to point out the different words.  I think perhaps it is similar to a European noticing a Texan accent.  I might get some flack for that. Our view from Sallrainhof We left Hannover at 4 AM.  By the time the sun rose we were in Bavaria.  We were all quite awake for those three hours, so it was exciting to finally be able to see where we were.  About 6:30 we rounded a bend on the autobahn and the beginnings of a su...