Staying Home on Saturday
I was going to call this “Silent Saturday” – but really, no, not silent, not with seven children in the house. It was, however, quieter than the previous few days. In the morning Scratchy made pancakes (with no eggs, because we had no eggs, but they were so good I didn’t even realise there were no eggs in them) and the boys spent the morning alternating between playing and coming back to polish off more pancakes. Barney and George didn’t even emerge from bed until about 10.30, so they had brunch, rather than lunch, before heading off to see a movie (Avatar) with GY. I was left here with the five youngest children – “five youngest children”! – I mean, how insane does that sound?!?
I had very little energy, so agreed that they could watch a DVD. They chose Ice Age, because Tim had already seen it, so he’d be able to follow the story even if he didn’t catch the meaning of all the speech. As Jack was putting the DVD in, his friends E and A arrived (both girls – things have certainly changed since the time he cried and refused to go and play in front of his friend J’s house because “there are girls there!”) They came in to watch the DVD too, and I made popcorn for everyone. Jack and Toby wanted a second DVD and chose The Magic Railroad, but the others took off to do other things, although Tim came back a while later to watch some more.
In the evening Tim had his first phone-call from home. Children doing an exchange are sometimes a bit upset after phone-calls, especially in the early days of the exchange, and although I thought Tim would probably be okay, I was prepared in case there were tears. I needn’t have worried. During the call Barney passed the door of the room where he was talking, and reported that he was animated and laughing. When the call ended, I was in his room, talking to Freddy; Tim came racing into the room shouting “Freddy!”, then saw me and grinned at both of us before telling us with great excitement, “In the phone-call, I said yes instead of ja!” In other words, he’d been speaking German with his parents and had replied to them in English without even thinking about it. 
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I think Louie actually slept through the night last night, although I can’t be sure. It might be that I was just too tired to notice him waking, because I’m told Jack came into the room at 4 a.m. complaining that “I’m starving!” – and I have absolutely no recollection of that…
In: babies, conversations, exchange, family, food, life, outings and adventures, social stuff
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First thing C said to me this morning when she found me in bed reading blogs on my phone was “How’s Tim doing?” I had no idea who she was talking about and she had to enlighten me! She’s very keen to know progress and how he is doing. I really hope it will continue to be positive!