Last Day of Summer

Well, our extended vacation is officially over. The kids start school tomorrow and we are all nervous. I am only worried about their emotional well-being since Aidan had such a bad experience in Madrid in preschool. Collin is also worried about their feelings, but he is also concerned about their clothing. Do Spanish kids wear shorts to school? We almost wish they had uniforms, that would make things much easier. We plan to get up at 7:45 am, get them ready and walk to a cafe near their school and have a first day of school breakfast. The first day is a kind of orientation with the teachers for half an hour in each class, then we leave the kids at school and come back for them at 2 pm. I am worried and excited for them. It is starting to sink in that Ian, my baby, won't be home with me all day. How will he do in Spanish kindergarten? Will he be able to control his impulse to throw a fit every time something doesn't go his way? We went to the park tonight and on the way home I let the kids pick out an ice cream from the stand near the bridge. I think I was feeling guilty for throwing them into Spanish school when they can barely speak Spanish. Their Spanish teacher Elena says they are learning really fast and have made a lot of progress. I'm not superstitious, but I wonder if I crossed my fingers and taped them together and slept with them that way if then the kids might have a good first day of foreign school. It would be very hard to type, eat, write, answer the phone and do my hair though. Collin gave them all blessings. I guess all we can do is hope and pray for the best.

We went to Almuñecar beach on Monday. It was really fun. The water wasn't superwarm and the waves were a little high for the kids, so it was mostly Collin and I in the water with the kids 20 feet away on the shore building sandcastles. Collin taught me how to bodysurf. Once I got the hang of it, I was totally addicted. I nearly lost my bathing suit a few times and did a couple of human tumbleweeds (bum over teakettle unintentional somersaults), but it was totally worth it. Collin and I love Beach Aidan. When Aidan is at the beach, he can occupy himself all day. He loves throwing or kicking a ball into the ocean and waiting for the waves to bring it back to him. He also is obsessed with collecting sea glass and chunks of sea tumbled tile. (When we came home from the beach he wanted to trade all of his sea glass for 6 chunks of really colorful tile I had collected.) That particular beach has rich pickings of both. We saw sea anemones, sea urchins, tiny crabs, snails and a lot of dead pieces of crab.  We spent most of the day there, with our ghetto umbrella set up, and no one got sunburned. 

The other night at dinner, Collin was drinking some mosto with ice in it. Near the end of his drink, he noticed a fat white pearl bead in his glass. He immediately looked at Aidan and Aidan seemed really confused and said, "Well, that is mine, but I didn't put it in there!" Then he got a big smile and said, "Oh yeah, now I remember. I froze that bead in an ice cube in the tray like a month ago!" I remembered that he found the bead in the dirt at the park and when I mentioned this, Aidan assured Collin that he washed it, "like a hundred times," before he froze it in the ice cube tray. Classic Aidan. That boy does love to freeze stuff. Every time I open the freezer, a new frozen concoction greets me. This week it is long skinny balloons filled with water that he later melts in a hot bath at night.

I am stuck in my Spanish. My teacher is in Holland for the next week and I can't go any further in my studies because I am getting everything wrong in the exercises. I am so frustrated! I start another Spanish class at Escuela de Idiomas de Granada next week. Collin signed me up for the Basic 2 class. It is so depressing to me that after all the classes I have taken, I'm still just in a Basic class! But my Spanish has improved a lot since we arrived in Granada. Collin wants me to do a language exchange with Goyo, an older man that is friends with one of the other Spanish professors from Bucknell. I met him a year ago, so I sort of know him. My other language exchange partners have pretty much deserted me. I wish I could still meet with Mercedes every day. 

We found the quirkiest Asian dollar store. It would be the BEST place to buy a white elephant gift. They also had some really cool cheap stuff that Collin and I wanted to buy. Collin actually needs a pair of sunglasses, but admitted that he is too cheap to buy them, even for only 5E. We also wanted some Speedo shorts for Ian, but they didn't have his size. They seriously had EVERYTHING in that store: clothes, shoes, school supplies, housewares, toys, cleaning supplies, decorations, bamboo plants, fake boobs, jewelry, candy, belly dancing costumes, and on and on. I was very tempted by the cute Asian stickers and erasers. Aidan really wanted a golden cat that waves its paw. Emma wanted some skateboard erasers. Ian wanted everything. I'm sure we will be making many trips to this particular store since it is on the way to the kids' school.