Punch Drunk

(I started this blog entry about a week ago and now it's the 7th and I'm just finishing up!)

I'm pooped.

P-O-O-P-E-D

The new schedule sounded good. Yeah, it sure did. Reality check. The kids come home in the middle of the day for 3 hours to eat comida, so in school 9-12, home 12-3, school 3-5. I guess there are some benefits: the kids can rest their little brains for a while, and, uh, hmm, I'm sure there are more benefits, maybe? In all, every day we need to make four trips to the elementary school, and two extra trips for the extracurricular classes on Monday and Wednesday. Plus, if Kerline wants us to walk with her then those extra trips in the opposite direction. Mostly I'm noticing the days go by way too quickly between, "oh, time to take the kids to school" and "oh, time to pick up the kids" times 2 or 3. We don't accomplish much other than daily household shopping and cooking. Oy.

In between the walking, walking and more walking, (I still don't miss having a car though; we're doing fine without it) we have an hour or two of peace. We have fine-tuned the schedule as we go and it's working pretty well. The adults are on a cooking rotation and the kids are on a dish-duty rotation. Saturday we bust the dust (vacuum, dust, do bathrooms). Each family has certain laundry days. We've also started a weekly family meeting on Sunday evening where the kids can air their grievances (which for some, are many - ugh) and Monday morning is the adult meeting (yes, we have to have a scheduled meeting time because rarely are we all in the same place at the same time without kids for more than 2 minutes). We are redefining "It takes a village..." I think we ARE a village.

We have had meetings with all the kids' teachers. Each teacher has held a general meeting and we've also had personal meetings with Jolie and Eva's teachers. The general meetings are, what's the word...inane? Kerline's general class meeting turned into a debate between 3 parents about the effects of having to repeat a grade on a 10th grade girls. And this has to do with things like their PE uniform and when they have French how? It was actually quite comical because it was so ridiculous; I had to choke back laughter.

Then at Eva's teacher's meeting we all got instructions that our kids should be in bed by 8:30 and they should eat a good breakfast. Huh? Wow, they have to tell people how to parents their kids in Spain too.

Jolie and Eva are taking a dance class twice a week from 12-1, so they just stay at school for that. Maria and Elena are taking it too. I would love to be a fly on the wall because I get reports from the others that Eva is hilarious in the class. She is really trying to do all the moves involving hips, shoulders, leaps, oh man, I can just picture it!

So, we're coming up on 5 months here. It's actually gone pretty quickly. My parents are coming on Wednesday for a 3-week visit. We'll take them to Madrid, Toledo and Barcelona during their time here. Mom is celebrating her 60th birthday here.

OK, time to help finish up homework before the family meeting...