Why?

Why, why, why????  It's all I seem to hear at the moment from L - who's almost 3. It was the same with the Boys, so I wasn't expecting any different with the Wee Girlie - how else is a toddler to learn without questioning everything they come across?

What other 'question' words should my toddler be using?  Well, it depends very much on where you're from it would seem.  As an English mummy 'Why?' is the word I expect most - probably closely followed by 'How?'.  Not so in Germany it would seem.

Last week we were at the Kinderarzt for the U7a the 34-36month developmental check-up (more on 'U-Appointments') and had the usual forms to fill in on what your child can do.  At the 2 and 3 year checks, this is concentrated on speech and social skills - so which words they use independently from a long list (not what they'd parrot after you) and how they interact with others / in certain situations - i.e. if a stranger approached them.

One of the speech parts of the questionnaire this time concerned what question words your three year old uses.  Did they use the following words:

• Wie? - how?
• Was? - what?
• Wo? - where?
• Wohin? - where to?

I was very surprised to see that Why? (Warum?) didn't feature on the list. Now my three year old chatterbox uses all of the above - but her top word is most definitely WHY? repeated a myriad of times over the most mundane of things.... the temptation to say 'because I said so' is very difficult to resist!!

So do German children not ask Why? - is it a cultural thing that they are not encouraged to question the way things are?  If you ask Herr EE, from his experience in the work place he would say yes - there seems to be no questioning of 'why' things are being done just a propensity to say 'no I'm not going to do it'.....!

Is it so expected that Why? is the question word of choice that it's not even worth asking about it - I have my doubts here given the German propensity to double check everything.... their thoroughness would not allow them to miss out something so important as 'Why?' nor indeed to make the assumption that everyone uses it.

Of course, I forgot to ask the Kinderarzt why (!) it wasn't on the list - I'm certainly always querying why he does certain things - what the need for them is and I get the impression that it is not the norm among his patients - but what that is down to of course is still up for debate.

So 'Why?'  Do / did your children use it incessantly, is it an Anglophone thing, or are your experiences of other cultures such that the use of 'Why?' is common to all childrens' development? 

All the fun of the Fair

Yesterday saw G's school's Christmas Fair.  Still being relatively new to the school, we of course decided that we must go and support the Fair as much as we could.  Whilst this time we were unable to give our time - we've had visitors this weekend, I did bake for the cake stand, and we turned up and participated in the activities and spent our 'wertmarken' on various goodies there. 

The week beforehand, we had been asked to buy activities cards for the children (5Eur each) which would allow them to participate in various craft activities, these included fabric bag/wallet painting; candle making; orange and clove pomander making; biscuit decorating; face painting and an activity organised by a group of Japanese parents at the school which involved sticks and elastic bands (more of this later!)

I was pleasantly surprised at how busy the school was when we arrived, it seemed like a good turn-out, and of course the money we are all contributing is going towards the school and so will benefit the children so you don't mind too much the additional spending! There was a busy 'Christmas Market' zone in the main hall, at which some commercial traders had set out their wares - decorative items, calendars and the like.  I have to admit to whizzing round for a cursory look before heading down to the children's activity zone and the cake/beer/grill tents!!

It seems from our experiences at Kindergarten, Football Club and now school that you can't use cash at these events where they sell food and drink.  Instead, you need to buy 'Wertmarken', I'm  not sure if this is just to make life easier for those on the stalls or to get round some sort of tax/licensing requirements.  Anyway, I had my strips of tickets to exchange for goodies at school.

G wasn't up for taking part in any of the activities when we arrived, but once he saw H and L joining in he did decide that it was perhaps not such a bad idea after all.  He'd had his eyes on the bamboo stick activity - this involved a convoluted contraption, constructed from bamboo sticks and elastic bands - this eventually turned into a functioning, elastic-band shooting gun - all of the children had done this activity and were careering around the playground shooting each other - absolute chaos - but out from under our hair!!


L and H were a bit more sedate, and decorated their canvass purses, studded oranges with cloves (oh how the smell makes me feel Christmassy!), H went for the face-painting and L got carried away with the biscuit decorating - this involved lots and lots of little sugar balls, very sticky fingers..... and a massive grin on her face! (thankfully I wasn't on tidying up duty afterwards - lots of excited children, and bowls of small sugar decorations - hundreds & thousands, silver balls and so on make for a large amount of debris under the table!)

Obviously an event like this wouldn't be complete without the obligatory bratwurst (or 2!) and a small beer to wash it down with!  I've had it on good authority that the bratties were of top quality - and can vouch for the restorative powers of the beer myself! There was also a superbly well stocked cake stand with everything from baked cheesecake, to chocolate brownies, to flapjacks (mine!) to cupcakes and everything else in between!

All in all our first visit to the Christmas Fair seemed to be a great success, next year I will try to be more involved and help out - but well done St George's a resounding triumph!

Laterne, Laterne, Sonne Mond und Sterne...

Yesterday at Kindergarten we celebrated the story of St Martin in a traditional way with a lantern parade. The official saint's day for St Martin is 11 November and as that was a Sunday this year, we celebrated on the next closest day.

The story is that of St Martin of Tours, who as a Roman Soldier gave away half his cloak to a beggar who turned out to be Jesus - see here for more information about St. Martin.

At this time of year, Kindergarten swings into full Blue Peter mode with the building of lanterns which we parade around the village on a light stick.  This year, having 2 children at Kindergarten, I had the joy of two lanterns.  Fortunately, the wee girle's one was simple as she's only 2, but they get progressively more intricate as the years progress, we have done all manner of designs from simple glowing balls to sheep, crows and witches! So, about 2 weeks ago, we met at school for a 'bastel-abend' an afternoon of cutting, sticking, drawing etc - I think I was more covered in glue than the lantern but then I'm not known for my crafting abilities!  All this is of course accomplished with much chat, coffee and biscuits!  After we had all finished the lanterns, there was a wee practise of the 'Martinslieder' the special songs we sing whilst parading (today's title is a line from one of the songs).

So roll on to last night's parade.  We all meet in the dark at the appointed time at Kindergarten and form a parade to walk around the block next to the Kindergarten - for this we have a procession starting with the village policeman, then St. Martin on his horse, then the Maltesers (not the confectionery, but a First Aid organisation), then the Vorschulekinder (these are the biggest Kindergartners so aged 5/6), then a brass band to provide the music for our singing and finally the rest of the rabble of Kindergartners ranging from 2 - 4 with associated parents, grandparents and siblings - quite a feat for a small village Kindergarten - and all for a walk of about 500m!

Having paraded and sung, we then congregate on the football pitch next to the Kindergarten where there is a bonfire roaring in order to watch a small piece depicting St Martin sharing his cloak with the beggarman.

Having sung and paraded, it's then back inside to continue with another tradition of the day, the Weckmann which is a gingerbreadman shaped cake made from a sweet yeast dough and tradionally has raisins for eyes and a clay pipe.  These are handed out to all of the children at the Fest.  We used to then celebrate with Bratwurst und Glühwein, but after an unfortunate minesweeping incident at last year's Sommerfest, we are now 'dry' for Kindergaten events - which does make them that bit more difficult to get through!

Schularzt Untersuchung

And so back to the fun and games that is German bureaucracy.....

H (5) is in the last year of Kindergarten and next year becomes 'Schulpflichtig' meaning that he is required by law to attend school, no not be educated / learn  etc but actually, physically go to a school and be taught there - you are not allowed to home school in Germany (in fact one German family was granted asylum in the USA as their human rights had been infringed by not being allowed to home school - but that's a whole other kettle of fish). As part of the preparation for entry into Primary School or Grundschule, each 5 year old is required to attend a pre-school medical.

This appointment is generated automatically and you are required to attend the regional health department to see the civil service doctors for a series of tests and examinations to ensure that the child is ready to go to school and that it can enter mainstream schooling without any problems.  We did this today, and H is not due (by German standards) to go to school until August when the next academic year starts, although we have chosen to opt out of the German state system and enter the International school system here instead and he will start after Christmas (this is a bit of a fudge of the two systems, UK and German - H would have started Reception in the UK last year but in the German system wouldn't start until next year - so he's going into Year 1 in January hopefully early enough not to have missed too much in the UK system, but with long enough in a German speaking Kindergarten to get the language well grounded).

We arrive a bit before the duly appointed time - and fortunately, they're running early (hurrah!) so H gets taken in to an office for a hearing and sight check whilst I have to grapple with some German forms about his behaviour and social skills (I can't help but think if I'd been in the UK that the form would have been provided in my own language to make it all a bit easier) I wasn't sure I'd completely grasped the right way to answer the questions but on further discussion with the doctor's assistant it seemed I had, thank goodness!  H then had to answer a series of basic questions based upon counting and colours etc as well as some simple drawing/copying tasks.  He accomplished all this without problem fortunately.

His 'Red Book' or baby record was checked for immunisation details, birth details, weights and measurements - and this always causes debate as the UK and Germany don't share the same immunisation schedules, the same system of developmental checks, even the same basic recording of birth data - so we muddle through and understand that some information is not available - cue much huffing and puffing - and that yes, I do know we haven't had X jab or done Y check - in this case, Hepatitis B being the immunisation - not regularly done in the UK, part of the standard baby jabs in Germany and also no significant baby development checks - done  very regularly in Germany and not at all in the UK (see my post on the U Appointments for more on these checks).  Anyway we beg to differ, but all is well.

We then have to wait to see the real doctor - and after a while are called through and some of the same checks are repeated, followed by some more complex drawing and describing exercises - well all going well here until H is asked to repeat something which he'd already said - and down comes the wall and he's not playing ball anymore - had enough of doing and saying and following instruction.  Now I'm sure this is all part and parcel of ensuring they are ready for school, but H is a very stubborn fellow and an immovable force - thank goodness after much cajoling, threatening and stern talking to he finally went back to finish most of the exercises and we have our signed piece of paper to say we are ready for school - not that it actually matters as he has his place for January anyway, but these hoops are here to jump through.  The threat that he'd have to come back and go through the whole thing again was too much to contemplate for him and me and fortunately he saw sense and got back to it.

Of course, once we'd left the building the little darling was full of all the answers to the questions asked of him, and could I shut the bugger up!

And breathe......

Well we've managed to survive IT - hurrah!  The 'it' in question is the long-awaited sleepover birthday party requested by #1son.

OK - so it's only been about 6 weeks since his birthday - so not too bad (one friend has managed to postpone a party from January - that takes some respect - my defences would have been well and truly worn down by that point!).  Yesterday lunchtime we had 4 8-year-old boys added to our own three Kindling for a whole 24hours!

Unbirthday boy had been super excited for days - and of course that doesn't translate well to the actual thing as it's never quite what you wanted and the over-excitement is not a good recipe for a fun time for everyone - cue dictatorial direction of what people could/couldn't do or play with - where they could/couldn't go - who could sit next to him and so forth.

We took the boys to see Madagascar 3 at the cinema (in German of course) as the birthday treat - which apparently was very good - so says A as he got to see it, I was entertaining a 2-year-old during this (we tried to go shopping but although she was remarkably compliant there were too many people and I had lost the ability to shop yesterday.....that's another story in itself!)

So home post cinema, takeaway pizza ordered, delivered, eaten (wine for mummy and daddy - a fruity little Muscadet if you're interested!) and  the world was almost a better place!  Cake....(yay) of course was then required - it was a birthday celebration after all.....!

#1 son had requested 'The Titanic' as the theme for his cake - he's been somewhat obsessed with it this year due to the coverage of the centenary anniversary - don't get me (or rather him) started on the topic as he's very interested in the minutiae and specifics (in a way only 8-year-old boys can be) and I really don't know/don't care/can't be bothered to find out how many life jackets they had on board and how  effective they were.....

Anyway, I digress - a Titanic cake - why do I let myself in for these things - surely a clock would be so much better and easier...... Well after some deliberation, I felt a sinking scene would be easier to achieve than the boat itself and so here you have it....

What I did was to bake a square sponge and cut a decent sized corner off, this corner was then trimmed down to make a 'bow of a boat' shape and then fixed mid-sink to the middle of the remained of the square piece.  I then constructed an iceberg from mini-marshmallows, glued together with buttercream icing.... I built the iceberg up a bit more from that in the picture as the consensus was that it needed to be more imposing (if a marshmallow tower can indeed be imposing at all!)

So candles out, cake eaten, beds arranged around the bedroom, children in pj's and then we have some 'quieten down time' (ha, ha, ha) with a bit of Scooby Doo and then glow sticks provided and off to bed at a reasonable time - later than usual but not so late that we can't have our supper in peace. 

Now, I'm not naive enough to think they'd go to sleep anytime soon - but  hadn't banked on me needing to go to sleep before they did - chattering boys combined with wakeful 2-year-old do not make for a happy mummy!!  Still, the boys seemed to have a good night - and despite the last one not going to sleep until just before 1am, they were all bright and breezy when they were up at 7am this morning.....

Which is more than can be said for me!

So I think we've survived IT - just a few more minutes before they're due to be collected and everyone seems happy.  Will we do it again........that remains to be seen!

I saw a mouse....Where?

There - on the stair, where on the stair, right there - a little mouse with clogs on......

Well at least that's what I've had going round my head for days, ever since H has been practising for the Blotschentanz - his Kindergarten were performing a clog dance at out village fest this weekend.

The third weekend in September - always good weather thankfully - is the Isenbuegel Blotschenball.  This is our village fest which starts on a Friday night with music and dancing in a marquee on the village car park - complete with beer wagon and sausage stall and culminates on Sunday morning with the 'Blotschenball' a traditional clog dance.

I could go into the history of it - this year was the 208th - but I'm not really sure of how and why it started, only that it has evolved over the last few years so that there is now no proper 'Ball' (oh yes, it was all black-tie and long-frocks once upon a time - how the clogs get in there I've no idea!) but the Kindergarten and village primary school perform a couple of dances instead and then there is a general 'tea-dance' type of affair with a local couple murdering the music - still we all go, every year!

This year, we started on the Friday evening with friends for a quick dinner then off to the Festzelt to see a Bon Jovi tribute band called Bounce - and though we missed the start - thinking foolishly that the headliners wouldn't be on at the beginning - we had a thoroughly good time - bouncing up and down to some classic numbers and shouting till we were hoarse.  Possibly a little exuberantly for the German crowd (but us Expat's now how to boogie.......!!)

The Saturday sees a children's sponsored run - we tend to give that a miss....

But the grand finale, Sunday's Blotschenball we had to attend this year.  H (no.2 son) was performing - and they've been practising for ages at Kindergarten - with the clogs too!





There are food and drink stalls, games for the children to play - and even a climbing wall (think of the health and safety hoops you'd have to jump through in the UK for that at a village fair....)  All in all, it's a lovely family afternoon, made all the more special watching your own little ones perform!  Oh and the fun of everyone else having a go in the clogs as the afternoon wears on - the climax of 'New York, New York' whilst dancing in clogs is quite something to behold - I tell you!  Roll on 2013!

Developmental checks - the 'U' appointments

Another birthday approaches (or flies by in our case) and so looms the next 'U' appointment.  These appointments are regular developmental checks of children six in the first year, then annually up to the age of five - and then a few more up to 16. 

So Son No2 turned five in May and today we had the U9 just to make sure he's hitting his developmental targets, his basic health is OK and so on.  We were there in all for just over an hour - if nothing else, the German health care system isn't rushed!!

On arrival he had a hearing test (and would have had a sight test too - but as he wears glasses this is done by the Augenarzt or eye-doctor), had his blood pressure and urine checked and was asked to draw a picture of a man.  All was going swimmingly until he was asked to draw...... We don't like to draw/write/colour - oh dear well that's a cross on the box - I'm sure little Fritz would have been much more compliant  as it was I managed to coerce him into an 'H' and that was all he'd put to paper.  Whilst this was all going on I had a questionnaire to fill in asking about what he can and can't do for example:

• draw a man (clearly not)
• catch a ball from a distance of 3-4m
• ride a bike - with or without stabilisers and for how long
• understand others' emotions
• get dressed/undressed alone
• play well in small groups

And so on - there were three sections here analysing physical competence, social competence and their speech/language development.  The first two were filled in fairly easily (once I'd checked the meaning of a couple of words - my German is still not as good as it ought to be....)

Speech and Language  development is a whole other kettle of fish.  We're currently having speech therapy with him in order to improve both his German vocabulary and also his pronunciation.  As far as I can make out, this seems to be a right of passage for German children - we see a good few Kindergarten friends at the Speech Therapist's office.  The German approach here seems to be to get it right as early as possible when the children are still learning and adaptable so as not to have any problems speaking or being understood once they hit proper school. We went through this process with No1 Son and he had about two years' worth of extra help.  It's interesting to note that there seem to be some sounds we we as an English family just can't say right - 'ch' sounds and the 'r' sounds in particular.  In the same way that most Germans cannot pronounce 'th' in the correct way in English.

Anyway back to No2 son, being brought up in a bilingual environment has meant his speech and language development has been slightly behind the usual milestones - this is apparently completely usual in children learning 2 languages, and in the last couple of years, it has been amazing to watch the way the second language develops.  He is in German kindergarten and so if he wants to communicate with staff and friends, must speak German.  We speak English at home and so he has had to adapt to switching between the two languages.  There are a couple of things which strike me as worth mentioning in regard to this dual learning.  Firstly, the German seems to be semi-dominant in that whilst the boys speak English at home and with me their word order or choice of word is often very German and this does sound odd to my English ear.  Secondly, as their vocab develops, certain things they know first in German and then 'translate' to English - for example No1 son always says 'overtomorrow' for the day after tomorrow - which is a literal translation of Übermorgen.  No2 son was talking about 'loading people in' to his birthday party - again from the German 'Einladung'.  None of these small issues are quite so weird as the two of them playing together in German....that seems just plain wrong to me - but I think they do it subconsciously (either that or it's so I can't understand what they're saying.  Now if that's not an incentive to sort my lessons out I don't know what is!)

Anyway, I digress..... We still haven't actually seen the Doctor at this point.  We still have to be weighed and measured and then we hang around for the Doctor to come and talk to us about the questionnaire and if we have any other concerns and also for them to do a bit more of a physical exam - heart and lungs listened to, stomach palpated, ENT check and then some physical tasks - can you hop....and so on.  She was particularly concerned with our lack of drawing and somehow managed to get him to draw her a passable man (well more a humpty-dumpty but that sufficed!).  An hour later and there are no major concerns - he's in good shape and nothing to worry about!!

So that would have been him done and dusted, but there have been some more 'U' appointments introduced so his next is in about three years time.  We have all this fun to come with No1 son in two months time.....  I'm sure you can probably opt out of them....but then again, this is Germany so who knows!

Kindergarten Sommerfest

As I said last time, we're coming to the end of the academic year and as you'd find in the UK we're into summer fairs and plays, but no sports day.  I think the lack of sports day is down to the fact that there is limited (or no) sports in schools.  As primary school only lasts a few hours in the mornings (you can have your little darlings home any time from 10.30 onwards depending on the school and day of the week) there is little curriculum time for extras such as sport.  This, along with music, tends to be done outside of school hours in specialist clubs and institutions.  My town for example has a music school for children which runs several afternoons a week and there are numerous sports clubs which also offer training for children on weekday afternoons.

Anyway, I digress, today was Kindergarten's turn.  Here, Kindergarten (Kiga) has children between 2 and 6 years of age and in our case has them in mixed age group classes.  The Kiga hours are much longer than primary school, we have a 35hour contract which runs from 7.30 am until 2.30pm five days a week.  Well, they have spent the last few weeks practising for the grand 'Sommerfest' which entails a 'theaterstuck' or play, a selection of games/activities for the children to complete - and of course lots to eat and drink. A fully stocked cake sale with as many varieties of cupcake as you could think of - my offering were chocolate cakes with peppermint icing on top, topped off with a small chocolate football in a nod towards the European championships - this of course went down particularly well with the football mad Germans!! Furthermore, like any self respecting German fest there is of course a grillstand for Bratwurst etc and also the chance to partake of some beer - now beer on offer at a UK nursery party would just not happen!!  But when in Rome and all that, we threw ourselves in with gusto!!

So No2 son (5) had  his starring role as a fish today and was beautifully clad in blue with coloured scales, he spoke his lines well with the other fish and sang along all very tunelessly.....if you can imagine 20 3-5 year olds singing you'll get the general picture!  Still he had fun and was proud to participate, I had to forcefully restrain his little sister from joining him on stage - it'll be her turn next year as she starts Kiga after the summer break (so actually at the beginning of August as even the Kiga holidays are shorter than school....)

It was a chance to meet other parents socially and we found another native English-speaking parent will be joining the Kiga in August, which given that we live in a small village is quite surprising - even more so when I tell you that there are at least 5 native English speakers in our village (8 if you include the kindling) and it's not all that big really.  It was also fun for No1 son to meet his old teachers and some of his old friends from Kiga as a few of them still have siblings there - so all in all a rather lovely day out - save of course for the one thing we couldn't plan for, the weather!  Whilst it wasn't torrential we did have a couple of showers and it's been a generally grey and dismal day.  Well that's summer for you!!

School!

I alluded to the fact that our ongoing school traumas were only part of a wider picture with schooling here in Germany and our experiences of it.  So I thought I'd try to put pen to paper as it were and explain how we have found the system here and what we have done.

Formal learning in school doesn't begin in Germany until you are at least six.  Unlike the UK where you would go into reception the year you turn five, here you enter the 'first class' the year you turn seven.  Until then, there is Kindergarten, this is predominantly a 'daycare/nursery' type establishment rather than a learning place.  So, at the beginning of the school year before you go to school, you apply to your preferred schools for a place.  In our case, we applied to our village school and were asked to come to meet the headteacher - as is fairly standard I believe.  Well, that was when our problems started.  Number 1 son you see was apparently completely incomprehensible, no-one could understand a word he said and so, said the headteacher, he would need further investigation.

We duly relayed this information to our kindergarten and they couldn't understand what the school were talking about.  Neither could the Doctor at his pre-school medical, in fact everyone we spoke to thought we were blowing the matter up out of all proportion and misunderstanding what the school were saying to us.  The school however, were still not happy and asked for an assessment by a specialist in speech development.  This was duly undertaken - at which point we (and she) were amazed to discover that the matter that this was not our son's first language had not been made clear.  But, despite the fact that he was learning a second language and despite of the supporting evidence from kindergarten, they felt it best that he be enrolled in a 'special school for the speech impaired'. 

Well as you can well imagine, we were somewhat poleaxed by this decision - as was everyone else we spoke to or asked their opinion, even our own paediatrician who had prescribed us speech therapy sessions for some minor tweaking felt it was a gross over reaction.  So we decided that we would not do this - if anything, being around other children with speech problems would not help in correcting some of the pronunciation issues we had.  What he needed was complete immersion in a proper German speaking environment, as he was experiencing in Kindergarten.  However, as the village school was so anti him joining them, we decided therefore to do our own thing and withdrew our application from the village school and told them where to stick their recommendations for the special school. 

Well, you'd have thought we'd have lit the fuse and retired at that point.  The headmistress from the village school told us that we couldn't withdraw our application - and that if we didn't go to the special school, then we would have to go to her school and she would have to take us.....

It would seem that as we didn't fit any of their existing support programmes, they were unable to see how we could fit into their school.  We have since heard from other parents at the school that the fact we are English was also another problem as the English teaching at the school is not strong and they felt we would be a hindrance here - you'd have though having a native speaker in the class would help and having a mother who would be able to help out with reading etc, but oh no, this is too much of a threat to the status quo of teachers who have been there for eons and are somewhat stuck in their ways.

Anyway, we decided that we would look at other options.  These are not many in Germany. You cannot home school as it is illegal (and I don't think I'm committed and motivated enough to make it work anyway) so that leaves the private system, which is not very big.  We were fortunate to have an International School in the next town - however, this was itself not without issue.

Being the good middle class parents we are, we researched the school online as well as visiting it and allowing our son to have a trial week there.  He was a different boy during that week, much more engaged and involved.  I don't know if this was due to the fact that most of the lessons were conducted in English - or whether it had just caught his imagination and away he went.  This left us with a difficult dilemma - for what we had read online was not particularly supportive of the school and more than hinted at a lot of problems in the school.  However, we felt we had no other option, and duly signed him up for the International school. 

Despite our misgivings, he has had two very good and successful years there.  He has come on fantastically and in the two years he has been there has been learning Chinese as well as English and German, has learnt the violin and his reading and writing and maths skills are unrecognisable from before.  It was definitely the right decision at the time.

So after a stressful time at the beginning of school we were fairly settled and things were going well.  We had a new and very proactive headmaster in place at our school and the whole school was buzzing with promise and enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, due to a series of personality clashes, broken promises and financial problems, the school is now on the brink of closure.  We are unsure from day to day as to whether we will have a school to go back to the next day.  It is a very sorry state of affairs and given the promise at the beginning of the year has been a very swift downfall. At Easter, we made the difficult decision to look for a new school and found a place at an English school a bit further away.  At that point, we were not aware how serious the problems we were facing were and are pleased that we acted when we did.  We were fortunate to have secured a place before this latest crisis came to light.  I dread to think how much more stressful this time would have been without a confirmed place for next year.  All we need to do now is hope that the current school limps on for the next three weeks until the end of the year.

If we don't make it that far, then a potential issue raises its head.  After the age of 7 you become 'Schulpflichtig' which means that you must attend school.  It is a legal requirement.  As stated above, you cannot home school, so that would leave us needing to find a school spot for the last four weeks of the German year (- our school dates were slightly different).  No-one can seem to tell us what that means in practice for us - and fingers crossed we wont need to know - but potentially it would mean us needing to go back to the village school to ask for/demand a place for the remaining few weeks.  Now that is not something I want to contemplate....

More Birthday Fun

So despite all the German misgivings our (2 days) early birthday party went off without a hitch (well almost!)

Ten 5-6 year old boys and the volume goes off the scale - but apart from the noise - and a meltdown by the (un)birthday boy when he didn't win the pass the parcel prize, it was a remarkably easy and unstressful afternoon.

Lots of playing - a very long time playing musical statues - which of course had the benefit of wearing the little darlings out - so much so that we ended up popping a DVD on for the last 20 minutes or so as they were all flaked out on the sofas!!


We managed to fill them with sugar at our 'retro English birthday tea' - Tunnocks Tea Cakes, Cadbury's Mini Rolls, Iced Gems (not as good as they used to be....), Cadbury's Fingers, Party Rings, cocktail sausages on sticks and cheese and pineapple on sticks.  All went down well - as did the jelly and cake!




All in all a great day and despite the minor hiccup over pass the parcel the Birthday Boy had a great day - and he gets to do it all again tomorrow on his actual birthday!

The Social Minefield that is Birthday Parties.

Who'd have thought that the humble Birthday Party could be fraught with so many social pitfalls. If you thought it was turn up with a present, eat some cake, go home then you too may fall into some of the traps.   I seem to fallen into most of them over the four years or so of holding them for the Children here. So far I seem to have got the following 'wrong'....

* Date of party - well blow me if you can't hold it before the actual birthday as it is the worst bad luck in the world apparently. 

* Cake - so I've had all manner of trouble finding appropriate baking material here in Germany - from no self raising flour or fondant icing to type of cake and when it's offered.  So my lovely buttercream creations have not gone down well with the German children who've come to celebrate - and I think you're meant to start the party with the cake rather than have it as the finale to a birthday tea.  I've resorted to making my own marshmallow fondant to cover cakes - and actually this worked out well....but you have to get the marshmallows in the first place.......

Homemade Marshmallow Fondant Icing on a Little Einsteins Cake.

* Games - I'm not sure what constitutes a party game in Germany - I've not been witness to any at a children's party.  I was however a bit baffled to find I had to explain pass the parcel to a group of 4 and 5 year olds as they'd never seen it before.  Ditto musical statues.  Ditto dead lions..... I think perhaps a 'traditional birthday party' in the Anglo Saxon way I understand it is very definitely not the norm here and that a less structured (is this possible for the Germans?) playdate approach - or a themed party out somewhere seems more ordinary.

* Food - so sandwiches, cheese and pineapple sticks, crisps, jelly and ice cream - all harking back to my idyllic childhood parties of course again seems to be the wrong thing to provide here - not of course that the children complain about the vast amounts of sugar and junk offered - hey it is a party after all!  But when I question my boys as to what they get given at other parties - it's much more a proper cooked meal rather than a 'birthday tea'.  Last year I did admit defeat on this one and ordered in pizza which went down a treat.  This year however, due to timely supplies arriving from the Motherland - we will be going "English" again!

* Presents - I have to admit that here I think the German approach I've come across here to actually be better than the 'turn up with a piece of tat' approach that seems prevalent in the UK.  Instead of individual gifts the guests contribute a small amount - 5 Euros or so - so that the birthday child can get a larger present.  This is so much better in my view and it's the one custom I've wholeheartedly adopted!

Anyway I think that pretty much sums up the Birthday Party faux pas I've made - but you know what I don't actually care that "I'm doing it wrong".  I'll stick to what I know and do birthday parties the way I'm used to and introduce a bit of individuality to them here!