Future plans

Dylan's current contract with his job is up in September. It's not problem to lengthen it (actually they would like that), but assuming he can get a job back in the US between now and then, it's our tentative plan to be moving in that timeframe. He's currently in the US interviewing for a job, which I'm really hoping will work out.

With that said, it's hard for me to imagine leaving here now. In a lot of ways it feels like we've just finally settled in here and gotten comfortable, and now we're going to uproot everything and change again. Of course, I start to feel like that, and then I have some difficulty caused by cultural or language barriers, and I'm back to feeling really ready to go to be home. It's such a confusing sort of place to be I guess. I've also started to hear/read about reverse culture shock moving back to your own country, and I can't lie that that has me a little concerned.

When my head starts to get all confused like this I have a really hard time blogging. I want to come on and be able to blog about what our future plans are, or lay down some dates and stuff, or share a lot of interesting new things that are going on. In this time of facing a lot of unknowns, I hesitate to share what's going on. It feels like I have either nothing, or confusion, neither of which seems particularly blog-worthy!

So, since that's where my head is… Here are some things about the kids! (They're so much simpler.)

James is doing great with his German. If I speak to him in German, he can almost always understand me, but very, very rarely will answer back in German. (I think our german levels are pretty similar, but there are some areas/themes of vocabulary where we don't overlap)

David is going to Kindergarten! Kindergarten here starts at 3, and they stay till they're 6. So more like preschool+kindergarten in the US. I applied for a spot for David last year thinking I might need it if I couldn't get out of my German class. They didn't have a spot earlier, but they have one now, and he'll start in February. He'll be in the same class as James, so I think he'll really enjoy it!

The boys are constantly cracking me up.  I wish I would write things down more often, because of course I forget it as soon as it's over. From the very recent past here are a few of their antics:

I told them to clean their room today, and they started making up a "cleaning as a team" song and singing it together. Of course as soon as I got my camera out they stopped!

I cleaned the boys' room the other day while they were school and when they got home David came up to me and said, "Mommy! Me so proud a'you! You cweaned up my woom. Good job mommy!"

They continue to be yin and yang with their eating. If I give them a snack of pretzel sticks and apples, David will eat all the pretzel sticks and James will eat all the apples. Given meat and frozen veggies, James' plate will be completely cleaned of frozen veggies, and David will have eaten all his meat. (is it weird that my kids only like to eat their veggies still frozen? I think yes, but I'll take what I can get!)

They love each other so much it astounds me. Of course they fight… a lot. But they love each other a lot too. Every time James gets a special treat from school, he saves it, and then splits it with David. When David goes to the bank or the pharmacy with me, they give him a couple candies and he will always save them both until he gets to share them with James. If one of them is sad and crying, the other one will usually try to comfort them. We have quiet time every day where they play together in their room. Sometimes one of them won't want to do that and will be crying, or whining, and I can hear the other one from outside the door. "It's ok David, don't be sad, look, do you want to play with my pirate ship? I'll let you be the captain, ok?." Then they'll go ahead a play nicely for 45 minutes, sometimes getting so engrossed in what they're doing they forget to come out at the appointed time.

In this picture, David is teaching James how to build something that he had built and that James wanted for himself. James asked David to show him how, and David was so proud to be able to do so!