Spring has arrived!

Yes, it's been about 3 weeks since I've posted anything to the blog -- since the first post. So goes the story of my life. It is fast forward from the moment I get up, and suddenly a week has gone by. And then, my inspiration for creating a blog, Angel, posts to her blog each week, and I think "I should do that!"

Presently, I am hoarse, which for a radiologist isn't good news, since I dictate all of my reports. So, I typed my reports today and will likely type them for the next 2 days until my voice comes back. This makes for especially succinct reports, which I'm sure all the participating hospitals in the U.S. are appreciating. I should really keep up the "just the facts ma'am" approach when I get my voice back. I mean who needs "blah, blah, blah" when "blah" really say it all just fine?

Aidan and Asher are finally well (pretty much). We had a week of fever for Aidan, with no other symptoms, which was kind of disconcerting on Day #4...am I missing something? Perhaps a strep throat that doesn't hurt? Am I going to be known as "that lady doctor that didn't take her kid to the doctor for a week and as a result her child got rheumatic heart disease?" (strep related complication). But, just like our neighbors' kids who had the same thing, the fever relented on day #5 and thankfully, Asher didn't get it. Asher is still suffering from a slight runny nose. They don't give vaccines here if you have a runny nose, and is currently due for one, so let's hope there is at least some lull between this runny nose and the next one.

Asher has now been in preschool for about 3 weeks. We decided to enroll Asher in preschool because we heard of one that was (1) near our neighborhood, (2) takes kids that are in diapers still and (3) has very small class sizes of 6 or so kids. He goes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He did pretty well his first couple days, but the last few days has been turning on the tears full bore, to which we say "bye! have a good day!" The teacher is Swiss, and teaches in High German and English. Interestingly, she is a psychologist who is trained in the Adlerian ways of child psychology, which we happened to attend a one-evening course on last winter. Their ideas center around the idea that a lot of your personality is fixed by about age 5 (no pressure there on the parents!), that you should consider the child's drives and thus why they behave the way they do, finding logical consequences for their actions, and other good stuff.

Anyway, she thought it would be good for us to meet after 2 weeks to talk about how he's doing. The first thing she asked us was "what is your philosophy on education?" Hmmm -- I was going to say something about how parents are the first teachers and that learning through play is good at a young age, and Matt responded with "we're going to let the boys go to the local Swiss schools for kindergarten, that is our goal for them." I think he didn't realize she meant more generally 'what is our philosophy.'

So she then goes on to say that we should really think of a few rules for Asher and stick to them -- like when he sits at the table, that he can't get up; he cannot knock over someone's block creations (apparently done 3 times that day at school before he realized that wasn't cool), etc. It sounds like Asher has wrecked havoc on the peace of her preschool community, running around at lunch time and knocking over others' creations.

But, we did realize that we don't sit down and teach Asher specific things at home and that now is the time -- we tend to put his shoes on for him, and so it's time to start the process of him doing it himself. We also walked away feeling like we got the "Swiss" talk from a true Swissy, as some Anglo ex-pats call them in the privacy of their own homes. I mean, they have rules like no others. This is why this place is such a great place to live. Trams run on time, things are clean and orderly, there is a procedure for most things, and don't EVEN think about not doing it the way of the procedure (you should have seen me trying to return my electric toothbrush that wasn't used to a clerk that didn't speak English...).

I have to say that I was a bit taken aback, because I expected that Asher, the more easy going of our 2 offspring, would blend right into preschool, and I was going to get the "he's doing great!" report, rather than the "we need a few rules" talk. But, I think this psychologist lady will be a great asset to have, as I can tell she does have a lot of insight into their little minds. And I think she enjoys these little parent-teacher therapy sessions.

Until the next entry on our adventures in parenting... have a good week!