Meet the Teachers

I missed last year's Back-to-Shool event for C because of a conflict with other activities. She wouldn't let me hear the end of it. Didn't I want to meet her teachers? Didn't I care? Was she less important than he oder siblings?

I made sure to go to C's 7th grade Back-to-School Night this year. I also attended the athletics info session. There were no earth-shattering revelations, but I'm glad I went. It was good to have a refresh on the sports stuff. It was definitely nice to see the teachers. There were a few teachers I knew from the previous years - the big kids had the same French and STEM teachers and loved them, H had the same science teacher, and E had the same orchestra teacher. It was interesting to meet the Math, Social Studies and English teachers, after hearing C talk about them ("Math teacher is so hyper!" "English teacher is weird"). I liked the English teacher (he said they were going to read Poe!!!). C's Orchestra, French, and STEM teachers are excellent. Math teacher has math background from college (it's always good when the person teaching the subject actually likes the subject!). 

For math, our district got rid of accelerated levels for elementary and early middle school. In 8th grade, there still is an option of maybe pacing into Algebra I instead of Pre-algebra, but I've been told the requirements are more difficult than before.  The older 2 kids did accelerated math starting in 3rd grade, and were automatically placed in Pre-algebra in 7th and Algebra in 8th. There even used to be an option for more advanced kids to take both algebra and geometry in middle school! Why our school is trying to hold kids back from algebra until high school - I have no idea. C was bored to tears in math last year. She said her 5th grade teacher (who loved math) taught them more and gave them more challenging problems than what she saw in 6th grade. I'm really hoping this year will be better.

Anyway... we shall see.

Overall, I like the school and the teachers. It was nice to see a few friends, too, whose kids go to the same school.

Do you remember your favorite teacher in middle school, around grades 6-8? 

Labor Weekend Report Plus Fall Activities Recap

We had a couple of beautiful days here - the humidity has dropped and the temperature was comfortable. I didn't quite get outside as much as I wanted to, because I had some work things to finish up, my dad's 80th birthday to get ready for, and random household tasks to take care of.

Saturday: E had a cross-country meet that was an hour away. Jim and I decided to attend, because this is E's senior year and only so many races left that we'll be able to cheer him on... Girls decided to spend that time at a mall, shopping for dresses (H got a dress for Homecoming dance). The rest of the day, I worked on work and dad's slide show for his birthday, kids did homework and chores, E worked on his college applications. We watched a couple of episodes of Stranger Things.

Sunday: We went to the pool for a couple of hours, where I thought I would read, but ended up just hanging out in the water with husban and kids. C's friend came over. I worked some more. Husband and E made a delicious dinner. 

Monday: we went over to my parents' place, had cake, watched dad's birthday slide show (kids and I worked on it for weeks, so glad he liked it!). 

I spent weeks (months?) agonizing and trying to figure out what to do for dad's birthday. I wanted it to be special, memorable, with good food, not too stressful, and something that he would enjoy. In the end, we did what he wanted - he wanted to go to his favorite park. We had a beautiful walk, stopped by a mini-zoo, talked. It was so, so nice. And then we went to a steakhouse that my parents already scouted out a week earlier and that my dad really liked. It was perfect. He knew exactly what he wanted, and it was great. (One time, when we took my parents to a restaurant for some kebabs, my dad complained about his meat in a very heavy Russian accent: this cow is very old!)

Note to self - for people's birthday celebrations, don't try to surprise them with something new - do what they want! It works out much better (at least with my parents).

Now we are almost back to our fall activities. Kids started school last week. We already had a back-to-school night for C (it was great to meet her teachers!). 

On top of school, E's cross-country and orchestra are in full swing. He also has a job at a running store.

H stopped piano lessons. E and C still take violin and cello lesson, respectively.

C auditioned and got into the junior county orchestra (aka, Young Musician Orchestra, or YMO). E is in the more advanced orchestra (DCYO) for older kids - he auditioned well last spring and now he is just a couple of chairs away from the concert master - he is pretty happy about that!

H was supposed to start dive training yesterday, but her coach cancelled the practice. She started her baby-sitting job (watching 2 kids for a family in the neighborhood once a week).

C is planning to join the middle school cross-country team (and we bought her new shoes at the store where E works, with a nice family discount! and it was fun to see E working and recommending her different running shoes)

Dear Reader - how is your fall going? Are you trying anythign new?

Paris Notes

Things we did in Paris, in no particular order. 

• Museum of music. See the octobass below. They also had a piano that Chopin played, Stradivarius violins, Guarneri cello, and a multitude of harpsichords. There was an audio guide provided at the entrance that could be used to listen to all the instruments.

• Sainte-Chapelle (so much stained glass!)
• Science museum (Neuroscience exhibit was great) 
• Opera house. Chagall ceiling was out of this world. Planning to come back there for a concert! Also, there was a library - how cool is that? 
• Notre Dame (the gargoyles all had different faces!)
• Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis (there were giant clam shells used for holy water, donated by Victor Hugo; plus, a hundreds-year-old graffiti "republic or death")
• Louvre 
• Musee de l'Armee (Napoleon's Tomb was... overwhelming. Also, Napoleon's horse was there. Maps of Borodin battle - I was on-site as a kid. Also, rabbits.)
• Jardin du Luxembourg (kids sailed toy sailboats in the fountain)
• Stravinsky Fountain (wild)
• The Defenders of Time clock (Le Defenseour du Temps)
• Musee D'Orsay 
  
• Eiffel Tower
• Pantheon 
• Montmartre (and Montmartre Cemetary)
• Marais neighborhood (we did a tour)

Food that we had in Paris and I want to try and make at home: galettes. I just need to find buckwheat flour.

I still need to sort through all the photos and videos on my camera...

How do you organize your travel photos?

Back to School

 All 3 kids started school today, September 1! 

I wish they would start on September 1st every year - new months, new beginning... just seems like a good way to start a school year instead of a random day in August or September that changes every year.

I have complicated feelings.

This is our son's last year in high school. Also, he is turning 18 in a few weeks.

I am so excited for him. I am so preparing-to-be heartbroken (you know that feeling, when you are happy but you know it will end and you will feel very, very sad? I wish there was a better word in English than bitter-sweet to describe the feeling of expecting to feel very sad). For a long time, I've had this countdown in my head to when the kids would graduate from high school and start their own life. 

It reminds me of the countdown I had after I gave birth to our first child. I had 12 weeks of "leave of absence" - maternity leave. And I kept counting down to when I would need to leave my baby... 11 weeks.. 9 weeks... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... game over. I thought it would be THE END. Of course, it wasn't. It was a big adjustement (for me... baby E was perfectly content to stay home with grandparents), but it actually worked out really well. I don't know if I had postpartum depression, but there was definitely something off. I felt so disconnected from everyone, it was like nothing existed except for my baby. Going back to work, it was so good to remember that I was a scientist, a human, a friend... all those things that I completely ignored while being absorbed in feeding/changing/gazing at my baby during his first few weeks. Not sleeping was terrible, but that's a subject for another post altogether.

So anyway, being away from my infant son wasn't the end of anything.

I am beginning to think that kids' graduation from high school will not be THE END, either. A change, for sure, but not the end of parenting. I look around at families with post-highschool kids... some work and live at home, some go to college but come home during breaks. Some come back home after college while they are figuring out what they are doing next or to save money while pursuing advanced degrees - C's cello teacher's daughter lived at home during her first few months of medical school (and then decided to live on campus because the commute was more painful than the cost of living on her own). My cousin, who has 3 kids, all in college or grad school, says parenting has entered another stage: it's more supportive listening and less giving advice. 

As much as I want to hold on to the kids, I also want them to thrive and be free to pursue their hopes and dreams. I do hope E goes to college of his choice next year. I do hope he and his sisters can explore, and try new things, and fail, and succeed, and have the grit and the fortitude to do the things they love. Meaning - this very well could be the last year all 3 kids are living at home full-time. 

This means, I need to prioritize family game nights. And family movies. And spend 1:1 time with E.

E's Senior year, it snuck up on me...

Dear Reader: are you counting down to anything? 

Versailles

When I was planning the trip to France, my two older kids said they absolutely wanted to see the Palace of Versailles. I figured we'd spend the whole day there and made absolutely sure we got the tickets - it was the first reservation I made. 

We arrived just before 9 am, on a warm, sunny morning, after a longish trip on metro + train and a brief walk. And the palace presented itself in its full grandeur, the gold shining in the morning sun. It was blinding, really - you couldn't look at the palace without squinting. 

[Our current president must be green with envy.]

We took a few photos, but those wouldn't do it justice. 

This is "dress to impress" at a whole other level. As in, pick your jaw up from the ground, and feel humbled and tremendously lucky to be in the presence of ... I don't know, I guess the legacy of Luis the XIV?

Anyway. It was all amazing. I loved the gardens even more than the palace. I wish I had more time to wonder around and explore. I am putting it on my "I will be back" list (note to self - go to Versailles when the foutains are on!). 

Guess what my daughters liked the best, among all the wonders and splendor, all that gold, the elaborate furniture, furniture, the mirrors, the fountains, the play-village of Marie Antoinette? It was small pig near the Queen's Hamlet. They had a few farm animals there in an enclosure (chickens, a donkey, sheep...) - but the pig was a winner. It was adorable. When the girls started petting it, it rolled its eye and pretend-fainted at their feet, oinking in rupture as they were scratching its back. 

One of my favorite things at Versaille was the portrait of Elisabeth-Chralotte de Baviere (because she looks like she knows how to enjoys life). I'm going to have to read up about her.

Here's an empty hallway that keeps going and going - but imagine it filled with people strolling about, gossiping, flirting.

Doesn't it feel like the place is full of ghosts? And there's got to be hidden passages behind some of these statues... Might be really neat to wonder through the empty rooms of the palace at night... 

Paris. Just A Few Thoughts.

Everything was bigger than I expected. Everything. 

The metro. The Louvre. The Palace of Versailles. The Arc de Triomphe. The Opera House. The Eiffel Tower. Notre-Dame de Paris. Sainte-Chapelle. Champ-Elyssees.

We saw so much. I am still processing the impressions... but if I had to use a single word to describe impression of Paris, it woudl be "Effortlessly Grandiose". Wait, that was 2 words. Well, that's Paris for you - it doesn't fit into meager single-word descriptions.

The metro would be "Terrifically Efficient" (for those who manage to figure out how to navigate it). There are endless tunnels going every-which-way beneath the city - it's a 3D maze-with-a-purpose.

The Eiffel Tower would be "Weightless Art-in-Motion". It is gorgeous. (And much bigger than I expected). We walked up the stairs to the second level. It didn't feel as hard as I thought it would - the stairs were quite spacious (unlike the stairs for Arc de Triomphe).

We only saw a small portion of the Louvre (The Louvre was so, so much bigger than I expected) - we decided to spend time visiting just a few works of art and not be overly ambitious. Mona Lisa was amazing (and while there were quite a few people trying to take photos in front of the painting, the room wasn't as crowded as I feared). I've been told to expect to be underwhelmed, but the portrait was absolutely breathtaking. Some works of art just have this magnetic pull, and this one - I couldn't take my eyes off it. Enigmatic, and ironic, and so much feeling trapped on the canvas. 

And speaking of raw extreme emotion - there was Liberty Leading the People. I've seen reproductions many times, but standing in front of the original - I couldn't walk away. I kept studying the details. So many layers, so much horror, and violence, and hope. Monsenior Delacroix could have reached out and hit me on the head, and I would not have been more affected. If I had to pick one favorite thing that I saw in Paris - this would be it.

And then there was Musee d'Orsay. Once again, I only saw a small part - I didn't want to rush through it, I wanted to give things proper attention. At the end of the visit, when my brain was fully saturated with the art and couldn't take another painting, I was just causually walking through the first floor, glancing at various sculptures. And I saw this (below) - and I was in love.

I am already making a list of things I want to see when I go back to Paris.

Is there a place that you want to go back to? Would you try to visit your old favorites there or see something different?

Luxembourg Impressions

We were in Luxembourg for just a few days, staying in an apartment walking distance from the train station. We had a balcony where we would hang out sometimes to watch people on the street below and to chat. We tried eating there a couple of times (there was a nice large table), but the yellow jackets would find us immidiately and attempt to take over the food. 

The location was great - very convenient for access to (free) transportation within the country, with lots of grocery shops and bakeries nearby. We explored the city and took a couple of day trips to the nearby castles (Vianden and Beaufort). 

The city itself is wonderfl - fun to explore, lot of historic sites, very beautiful views.We mostly explored on foot, but also took trams when we were tired.

Some of the things we did in Luxembourg:

• Shoah memorial
• The casemates du Bock
• Cathedral Notre-Dame of Luxembourg
• The Chocolate House (the cocolate was delicious! we also had some traditional Luxembourgh food there) (the cakes were really cool)

• Wondering through old streets and gawking at the ancient walls

Vianden and Beaufort castles took about an hour to get to by train and bus.

Vianden Castle was a break-taking experience: we got off the bus and - oof, there was the castle, a giant thing plopped on the hill, both beautiful and forbidding. The kids loved Vianden Castle and all the activities there. We watched sword fighitng demo and falconry (one of the eagles flew off and refused to come back, sitting and sulking on one of the roof tops). There were artisans and merchants making and selling different things. Once you were in, you kind of forgot about the size of it, just wondering thorugh the restored halls and rooms. We also did a one-way chairlift (amazing views) and had treats at the cafe on top of the hill - very touristy but the views were breathtaking; interestingly, there were a lot of people speaking Russian at that cafe! We also some exploring of the town and surrounding areas on foot.

We went for a hike near Beaufort Castle - I wish we had more time to explore the trail and hang out at the stream, but we had to hurry to make our reserved time for the tour of the Renaissance portion of the castle. The castle was a place of residence from the medieval times until 2012, when the last owner had passed away. It was cool and a little sad... there was a table in front of a window with binoculars, where she would sit and count the visitors to the medieval portion of the castle. The medieval ruins included a torture chamber, complete with the instruments and descriptions that gave me the shivers.

A big highlight of visiting Luxembourg was finding blackberries in the parks. Our kids love picking berries - and those were probably the best blackberries we've had in a long time (possibly ever). I can't get over the fact that they just grow and nothing seems to eat them... I think a few other people went berry-picking, because most berries close to the walking paths were gone, but if you got just a little bit deeper - there were so, so many. I don't know what the birds of Luxembourg do, but clearly, they find blackberry-eating benath them. I don't suppose there's much deer and we haven't seen a single squirrel. We used one of our water bottles for storage and transport, and ate the berries the next morning with breakfast.

What's your favorite wild berry to pick?