Snow and Water

We woke up to snow this morning. Not just a little dusting, but real snow and the grey telltale sky that promised it would snow most of the day. When we stepped out on our little 8th floor balcony (in the dark) we realized that it was also really cold. Ugh! We nevertheless got ourselves ready and bundled up and headed out. We only had one quick stop at the bakery downstairs to get Alex's afternoon snack: soft salty pretzel. This has become a thing now, I'm afraid. On our walk, Alex frolicked in the snow all the way to school - to the point where his pants were pretty much completely wet by the time we entered the building. He seems to be impervious to the frigid temperatures. Here's a picture from our morning walk. It's about 8:10 am and, as you can see, it's still quite dark. You can also see that he's wandered quite far away from the actual path that had been cleared by university groundskeepers earlier in the morning.

Annika, the younger daughter of our friends in Heidelberg had gone to the same preschool (Kindergarten) when she was Alex's age and she has been eager to go back to visit. So, I arranged to meet her and one of her friends there at 3:30 pm, today's designated pick-up time. (At some point I hope to be able to leave Alex there all day, but we've been slowly lengthening his days.) The girls were already there when I showed up in the afternoon, inspecting all the rooms and chatting to the teachers. It was so fun to see these 11-year olds there talking about how old they were, but also remembering how much fun they had at the enchanted place. I got to chatting with one of Alex's teachers and she told me that a 6-year old girl called Ayla has sort of taken him under her wing. Apparently Alex goes wherever Ayla goes.

The three groups at the school are all age-mixed with 3-6 year old kids. Indeed, though Alex's preschool is called a Kindergarten, there actually is no such thing as American Kindergarten in Germany. Instead, all kids stay at preschool until they are 6 (or thereabouts) and ready to enter first grade. What's more, lots of attention gets paid to the fact that children do not have to worry about anything "academic" until they get to 1st grade. So, while they learn a lot about animals or whatever, there is absolutely no teaching of letters, or reading, or writing. As far as I can tell, Alex may be the only kid in his group who can write and read his name. I think I mentioned earlier that the kids' cubbies etc. are all marked by symbols (Alex has a bicycle) and not their written names. And this is not just this particular preschool. I guess my brother and I were also raised in this system and learned to read and write just fine, so maybe we worry too much about these things so early in the US. I don't know. I'm glad Alex has lots of time just to play (and, after all, he's learning to function in a second language), but I wonder if he'll be considered to be behind his peers when we get back to Indiana. Time will tell.

After school, we marched through the snow to the bus and took it to a local pool. At first the idea to go to a pool in frigid winter weather seemed weird, but it turned out to be totally fun. Annika and her friend played with Alex in the water like crazy. Even though they had spent a whole hour outside at school in frigid temperatures earlier in the day, he still had tons of energy to burn off. And, I have to admit, since my wretched chair situation has not been improved (thanks for all the feedback from friends in the past 24 hrs - clearly, I am not alone facing this kind of situation), I also loved lounging around in the warm (30 degrees celsius) water. Stepping back out in the cold was another story, but a bubbling homemade pizza warmed us right back up once we got home.