The Name Game
It’s all quiet here. Barney has gone to an OU tutorial, George, Freddy and Jack are asleep in their beds, Toby has (finally) fallen asleep in the one-sided-cot beside my bed, and Louie has (finally) given up climbing all over me and decided that sleep is perhaps not such a terrible thing after all. And oh, yes, I must introduce Tim 
Tim is ten years old – two days younger than Freddy. He arrived with his mum, L, late on Sunday afternoon, and within minutes of entering the house, he had disappeared upstairs to play with all the other boys. That continued through Monday morning, and in the afternoon, when everyone was showing signs of needing a change, we went to visit the castle and have a look around the town. L took lots of photos to show her other children – Tim is the second-oldest of four boys. The family knew nothing about En Famille until last September, when Tim discovered an unexpected French child in his class, and came home determined that he wanted to do an exchange himself, but the family has jumped in at the deep end: a French boy, matched with Tim’s older brother, will be arriving with them two weeks from now!
Tim is a great kid and, I think, a great candidate for an exchange of this kind. He’s friendly and enthusiastic, keen to speak English as well as possible, and eager to find out what it’s like to be home-educated. He and Freddy are getting on well, and he’s quickly developing a friendship with Jack too – with the others as well, but with those two especially, it seems. I have to confess, however, that there is more than a little confusion, because Jack and Tim, in their non-blog personas, have the same first name. Both have adopted different versions of that name for the duration of Tim’s time with us, but it’s taking me a while to get used to it…
Today I took L into the city so she could catch the bus back to the airport and fly back to Germany – she was managing very well when we parted, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that she shed a few tears later in the day. I came home and sat all the boys down to do some skool – we would have taken a few days off, but Tim was so keen to get on with it! He did a bit of reading from Jack’s book, and Barney prepared for his tutorial this evening while the others got on with some work on their own. After lunch (Tim helped me make scrambled eggs and toast) we went into the living-room and played some games – Bohnanza, which he already knew because his family in Germany also owns it, and Doodlebugs, which came easily to him because it’s basically a junior version of Uno and he’s quite a big fan of Uno – which, by some good fortune, Freddy received for Christmas 
George displayed, once again, his dislike of coping with change, by having the biggest meltdown he’s had in ages *sigh* – but recovered by dinner, and has gone to bed early, so I hope tomorrow will be a better day for him. Tim didn’t eat much at dinner, but I think he was just too exhausted – between a new language and a new family and his first time on a plane on Sunday and L leaving this morning, it’s not surprising that he was in bed and asleep by 6.40.
I’m hoping that the weather will be better tomorrow, so that we can all get outside for a while. We already have plans to visit the science centre on Thursday, and then on Friday we’ll probably swim and go to the library, and then it will be the weekend, and before we know it, Tim will have been here a week and I’ll be used to counting to seven again 
In: babies, education, exchange, family, life, outings and adventures
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welcome Tim. though personally I’m finding that confusing
Oh crumbs – there ought to be a law against the same name! I know someone who married someone who also had a son of the same name as hers (both of them were widowed) so one became Little J and one became Big J – only in time Little J grew much taller than Big J!
We know a family who have a similar situation – a daughter called C, then they ended up with the child of a teen they’d fostered, who was called C after their C, so Big C and Wee C. By the time Wee C was about 10, she was taller and heavier than Big C, despite being half her age
So Tim has a very similar name to one of mine then? Glad to hear he’s settling in well
Yeah, it’s going to be interesting when we get together, isn’t it! They’re both using variants on the name though, and neither is using the variant on the name that yours does!
yay, welcome tim!!
My cousin who has a Jamie by one chap went on to marry a James! Glad he appears to be settling in and good luck with the weather!