Busy Fall

Vigo's favorite season is approaching slowly! We rode our bikes around Alexanderplatz the other night to see how far along they were building their Cheesy Christmas village, erecting the ice rink, and assembling the ferris wheel. We can't wait to start hitting the ice skating every day after school.

Erik and I went to the parent-teacher conference yesterday. Vigo is doing fine in school, and his attitude and behavior are improving all the time. He still has trouble shifting gracefully from one task to another and doing what he's supposed to be doing instead of what he wants to be doing, but don't we all.

Vigo is involved in a new afternoon club called D.I.Y. (Design It Yourself) on Tuesdays. He is totally nuts about this club and looks forward to it all week. It's run by one of the mothers at school, who s a designer. She joined me last weekend for Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art-School Cabaret Life Drawing Class and we had a good time. Vigo is also doing two electives at school, plus German club to catch up. One of his electives is reading Harry Potter in German and the other one I've forgotten already!

Vigo has also recently taken up knitting. He's working on a wrist band, with a button on it, and he's been going with me to the Monday-night knitting group in a cafe around the corner from home. They adore him there, of course. He knits a little, has a cup of tea, and then plays with the other ladies' toddlers.

We have been trying to find some good activites that would get Vigo doing things in a German-speaking environment. He's tried out tennis lessons the past two weeks, with a couple of his friends from school. It would be a great activity because it's inexpensive, a 20-minute bike ride from home on Saturday afternoons, and I get to hang out with a friend also speaking German for the 90 minutes he's in his lesson. Unfortunately, Vigo is saying that he doesn't care for tennis and would rather try something else. Erik found a rock-climbing class close to home, and I've been looking into gymnastics and pottery. Vigo is rather enthusiastic about pottery, which he has done a lot at school.



It's kind of funny that we live in Berlin and have to make an effort to get Vigo into a German-speaking environment. He has class for about half of the day in German, but when he is not in German class, he and his friends communicate in English. Even his German friends prefer to speak English with him. That said, Vigo is reading in German at his grade level and is able to do the work he is supposed to do. He really just hasn't yet become comfortable speaking.

Our social calendar has been rather full lately. Last weekend we went to the Komische Oper for the first time and saw a new production called Rote Zora (Zora the Red), based on a famous children's book. The opera hall was full of kids. It actually kind of smelled like diapers in there. Vigo loved the show and said that this was his favorite of all of the operas he's seen so far (all three).

We also went a couple weeks ago to a very fun art opening at Stattbad Wedding, where a friend of our friend Dan had a sound piece. Vigo particularly liked a couple of the art pieces. One was a train going around a track, coming from a different direction each time. The other one that really inspired him was an old bathtub filled with either milk or a milky liquid, with a video of water dripping onto a surface of water projected onto it.



Vigo and I also made another trip to Dessau, just us and Sam this time. We had a fantastic time there. We went apple picking and brought home as many apples as we could carry. We were eating apple pie, apple curry, apple sandwiches, and fried apples for a couple weeks!



For Halloween this year, Vigo dressed as a devil. He had very specific ideas about how his costume should look and we did a good job making it happen together. Of course he looked so adorable in his devil costume, the effect was not at all as terrifying as he had thought it would be. His friend Edward, who had moved away to Ireland at the end of last summer, came to town for a visit. That was wonderful, but also very sad for Vigo when Edward went back home again. He really loves and misses Edward. We are working out when we will be able to make it to Dublin now.

In the evening, we all went over to Leander's house. We had pumpkin soup and sausages and the boys got dressed up again and went out in the neighborhood trick-or-treating. Leander lives in a neighborhood that has been into trick-or-treating for years already. It was exciting seeing the boys go out on their own with their bags. They came back with a modest take. One person who was caught unprepared gave them bananas.





Erik's mom Elly is arriving on Friday, so I'm postponing Thanksgiving until then. You can totally do that when you live in Europe. I have a goose in the fridge, plus a pumpkin for pie, sweet potatoes, and cranberries. We're all looking forward to the visit.

Oktober

Vigo had to learn this poem for German class. He made this little movie with pictures he took himself, reciting the poem from memory.

A Quick Update

Vigo had an incredible week at school last week. His teachers reported excellent behavior and he finished all of his class work in school, which hadn't happened yet since we got to Berlin. He was quite pleased with himself, almost as pleased as we and his teachers were, I think.



This weekend, we did manage to get to see the Royal de Luxe performance at the Brandenburger Gate. Vigo and Kiran and I miraculously managed to get right up to the front of the crowd. First, we were lucky enough to get close behind an angry, drunken clown who was plowing his way aggressively through the masses, and then we jumped a couple fences with only a disapproving frown from the police security. Unfortunately, our efforts were not well rewarded. As you can see in this video, the sound system came and parked itself directly in front of us. Grrrr! We couldn't see a thing in the finale.

October Already!

The first month of school has flown by! Vigo got off to a little bit of a rocky start with his new teachers this year. Erik and I had to go into the office one day to be told that his antics had gone too far. According to his teacher, Vigo threw his quarter red pepper at her and hit her on the back on the way to the lunchroom. According to Vigo, he was innocently swinging his arms in a completely normal manner when the lid came loose from his lunch container and the pepper "just flew out" and hit Ms. Pilsen. According to reports I've been getting this week, his behavior has much improved since our uncomfortable moment in the office.

We have been trying to make some extra efforts at home to help Vigo with Math and German. The school had a hard time keeping a German teacher on staff last year, and we think he could use a little catching up because of that. He's been doing math flash cards on my phone and Erik has been reading to Vigo in German. Vigo also recently began to read in German on his own, in ernest. He has been reading a translation of a book he loved back in first grade, the first volume of the Magic Treehouse series.

We have had a very busy social life this month. Everyone is taking advantage of the wonderful early fall weather. It has only started to get grey and rainy this week. The school had it's big party for the first day of school, which was very fun, and then a couple weeks later was the open house.

Vigo and I discovered a couple hazelnut trees near his school a few months ago and we managed to get some delicious tiny nuggets that the squirrels hadn't harvested yet. There are lots of hazelnut trees around, but most of them are of a variety that makes teensy tiny little nuts with thick shells which are hardly worth cracking.

Here's a picture of Vigo harvesting some nuts.



Mostly, Vigo has been spending a lot of time with his friends from school. There have been a lot of sleepovers. We still have the tent set up in Vigo's bedroom and it makes for a really nice camping-out feel when he has kids over. I've also been able to take Vigo and his friends to the park a few times after school, which is always great. We stop first at the store and get ice cream and then the boys can go to the playground while I sit on the grass in the sun.

Here he is at the park with his friends Oskar and Leo.



Erik and I took Vigo to an interesting contemporary classical music concert at the Wasserturm, which is near our house. The Wasserturm is an old brick water tower that isn't used anymore except as a concert and exhibition space.

We saw five pieces perfomed by bass clarinet, contrebass clarinet, and electronics. The first song was rather dramatic and cacophonous, and in the dark, shadowy water tower, it made quite an effect on Vigo. He crawled into my lap and hid his head under his sweatshirt hood. He whispered in my ear that he was scared. I whispered back that I could feel the scariness of the music, too. I said it reminded me of the wild rumpus of Where the Wild Things Are and I suggested it might be a very interesting opportunity to feel scared feelings in a place you know is totally safe. The other pieces were less dramatic and Vigo fell asleep during the last one. Here are a couple pictures from the concert.





Last weekend, we had Kiran over for a sleepover on Friday and we took the boys to the Lustgarten at 8PM to see a performance of contemporary Indonesian shadow puppets. We packed some fresh-baked cookies, hot sweet tea, and sleeping bags. The boys went up toward the front and watched the show with their treats and afterwards they spent about half an hour rolling around on the lawn inside their sleeping bags. They were both pretty well tuckered out by the time we biked home that night.

Here's a picture of a sword fight they had on the way to the show and another photo of the actual performance.





Tomorrow we are supposed to see the Royal de Luxe and their gigantic marionettes.

In mid-October we're planning to spend a few days with Iris in Dessau. Here are some pictures from our last trip to Dessau, when we helped Iris move her stuff to her new house.







Vigo is also soon going to be starting to take tennis lessons with a couple of his friends at school. He seems pretty enthusiastic about it. He might do a trial lesson next week already. I'm thinking about taking some lessons at the same time. I've never really known how to play tennis.

Apart from a few sniffles and a minor bout of lice (almost done with that laundry!), Vigo's health has been good. He had a bit of asthma last Spring but he passed his lung tests fine earlier this month.

Mochtest du ein Piece of Mich?

Speaking German with a heavy American accent is currently all the rage with Vigo and his friends at school. It's fun hearing Vigo start to actually speak German, and he thinks his fake bad accent is hilarious. For a few days, he kept repeating this from Kiran: "Mochtest du ein piece of mich?" Apparently it was the funniest thing Vigo had heard all week.

End of Summer Update

In exactly one more week, Vigo will be heading back to school. He has already been going to the school every day the past three weeks for Hort, which is something like day camp, so he's not got far to go to be back on a regular school hours schedule.

His best friend this year has been an Irish boy named Edward, who unfortunately just moved back to Dublin. Vigo was really sad about Edward moving away, but he seems to believe us when we say we'll go visit Edward's family in Dublin. We saw them off last week with a nice brunch. Here's Vigo with Kiran (in the middle) and Edward just before Edward hopped into the cab to the airport.



Vigo got to spend a lot of time with his other close friend, Leander, especially at the beginning this summer. He went camping with Leander's family for a few days when Erik and I were off helping Iris take the roof off her new house. They reported that unfortunately it "wasn't a frog year" at the lake. It's going to be interesting to see the groups of friends reform when school starts. Here are a couple pictures of an outing to the pool with Leander's parents, Vigo, and Edward.




In the past month, Vigo has become closer to a boy named Kiran. They've both been in Hort together and our families have gone to a couple free outdoor concerts together.



We've had a lot of sleepovers this summer! Up to 5 in a single week, with Kiran, Leander, Edward, and Markus. We've also been to the park a lot, and have had our share of picnics. Here's a nice picture of Vigo and Kiran playing video games together.



Vigo is still reading a lot. This morning before school he was reading in German for the first time I've ever noticed. He was reading Max and Moritz, which I think Dan gave him for Christmas.

We've been reading Harry Potter together as a family, taking turns passing the book around. We read a chapter or two almost every day, and are halfway through the third book. Vigo and I have also been reading another book series just the two of us, called The Chronicles of Mistmantle. Vigo reads out loud really well and it's a lot of fun. We take lots and lots of breaks to talk about the motivations of the different characters and make plot predictions. Anybody can interrupt the reading to make a point at any time.

Vigo and I have also been listening to audiobooks together. We finished the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays, which he totally loved and we're now listening to this great newish version of the Odyssey translated and narrated by Stanley Lombardo. I've got the Iliad for when we finish. All this talk in the Odyssey about the heroes of Troy has made Vigo curious. We usually listen the the audiobooks on Sundays, while we clean the house.

It's hard to believe that we have been in Berlin for almost a full year. We're thinking about trying to throw a party to celebrate.

Upside Down

Maybe about a month or more ago, Vigo started standing on his head a lot. He seems to have an unfightable urge to balance on his head several times a day.

This is something I used to do as a kid, too. I used to watch TV upside down. I probably spent 10 per cent of my time feet in the air at his age. It's so strange seeing another person doing something that you think of as a personal peculiarity.

New Haircut

End of the School Year

Vigo has only about two more weeks of school left. Next week is his big class trip: three days in the woods. All the kids at school are buzzing about this. One difference between school here and in the US: children are allowed and encouraged to bring their pocket knives. They will be put in the care of one of the teachers, who will pass them out to the kids at the appropriate moments, and teach them some proper knife handling skills. Luckily for Vigo, he found a battered old Swiss Army knife on the street a while back.

Yesterday we went to Vigo's portfolio presentation, where he showed us his work and explained the marks he had given himself on his self-evaluation. I found that he was a bit hard on himself in some cases. He's doing well in school, despite having missed three full weeks (not in a row, at least) over the past month or so. He had a tough time recovering from the strep germ that caused his scarlet fever. He seems to be doing fine now, at last.

Vigo is struggling a little bit right now with the fact that his best friend Edward is moving back to Ireland at the end of the summer. Another good friend of his, Ruby, is leaving to go back to the US this week. Being in an international school, the families tend to be a little more mobile than in other schools. Hopefully as the school matures, the student body will become more stable. The picture attached to this post is from the little good-bye dinner we had with Ruby's family on Wednesday night. Ruby and her sister Lucy are the two blondes next to Vigo. On the Left are Sam and Katherine. Sam and Katherine's family live right around around the corner from us and Erik has become very good friends with their father Guy.

I bought a cheap tent while I was in France last week and Vigo has it set up in his room. He's been sleeping in it since Sunday. Sam seems to like to sleep in the tent, too, and Vigo is delighted to have her with him.

For most of the summer, Vigo is going to be going to the school summer daycare program, where he'll see a lot of his friends. We're also getting ready to spend a week in Dessau, camping out and helping Iris to pull the roof off her new house. I'm eager to try out the snorkeling gear I found in the basement in Paris in the small lakes of Dessau. Vigo is adament about going "mountain climbing" one time this summer. He still says that Vermont is his favorite place in the whole world so far. I think we should be able to figure out a long weekend somewhere mountainous enough to satisfy him.

For most of the next two months, though, we will be home enjoying Berlin. We encourage everyone who can to come sleep on our floor and enjoy it with us. It's beautiful, hot, and the sun is up both late and early.

I know it's way too brief, but here it is anyhow...

These are some of the pictures we have to choose from for school pictures. I'm impressed by his jumping style!



I've been in Paris the past week, while Erik and Vigo have been in Berlin. Vigo's visit to Paris was a bit spoiled by another ear infection. The third one this year! We're going to talk to our doctor about this and maybe see a second doctor, too.

Otherwise, Vigo is doing great. He does miss his friends back in Somerville and wishes we could make another trip back there this year, but until Erik and I start making money again, that's not going to be possible. I just got a cheap, light, tent and we will spend all summer in Berlin with a few camping weekends thrown in. Hopefully a week in Dessau, too.

We just started reading the Harry Potter books, which are a lot better and more enjoyable than I expected them to be. We're also reading the Mistmantle Chronicles, which is super high drama and really nicely written.

Vigo and I recently went to see Swan Lake, which was danced by children. Some of the dancing was pretty, well, it was done by little kids... but the girl who danced the lead was beautiful. And the music was great as well. Vigo most loved the owl's entourage of bats.

The Marshmallow Test

I know it's been months since I've written anything of substance. This is going to be disappointingly short, I'll warn you right off.

Most of you have probably already heard about Walter Mischel's marshmallow test. If you haven't, here's a great show about it on Radiolab you can listen to.

The basic idea is that kids who manage to delay gratification do better later in life than kids who don't and the kids who manage to delay gratification do it by finding strategies for not thinking about temptation.

The other day Vigo and I were on a long walk and I told him that someone had done an experiment where they said to kids, "You could have one marshmallow now or two later." I asked him what he would do. He got very excited about the idea of marshmallows and he said, "Well, I wouldn't even have to think about it for even a minute. I would definitely choose to have two marshmallows later, because two marshmallows is better than just one."

Then I told him that the next part of the experiment was that the guys left the kids in the room all alone with the marshmallow for a really long time and waited to see what the kids would do. I asked him if he thought he would be able to hold out.

Vigo said he thought he could. I asked him how would he pull it off and he immediately replied, "I dunno. Maybe I would sit under the table."

Good answer!

The Viking Genes

A few people now have sent me this movie trailer because the 13-year-old Swedish boy in this movie reminds them of Vigo. Check it out. Vigo is cute when he's 13.

Funy Accents

This morning, as I was getting dressed, I was talking out loud to myself in a funny accent. In saunters Vigo, and says, "Why are you talking in a funny accent?

"I'm just talking to myself. I've heard you talk to yourself in a funny accent plenty of times before," I reply.

Then Vigo says, in his excellent British accent, "I don't talk in a funny accent. I talk in an English accent."

Our Visit to the US

We were in the US January 31st until February 8th, during Vigo's winter vacation. During out layover in Newark, Vigo got to try his first Shirley Temple. He was very impressed.



Back in Somerville, we borrowed our old car and drove up to Vermont, to stay for a few days with Justine, Michael, and Sienna. Erik and Vigo (and some days Micheal) went skiing and I hung out with Justine and Sienna at the house. Vigo had a half day of ski school and then went out on the slopes with Erik. Vigo was very proud to have come down his first real black diamond, only falling about five times, he told me.

All the time Vigo didn't spend out in the snow, he spent doting on Sienna, who was 8 months old at the time. He really found her fascinating and just showered her with attention. He was disappointed every time she went for a nap or to sleep for the night.




Vigo also did a little bit of shoveling, and got caught in an "avalanche."



After our time in Vermont, we spent almost a week in Somerville, visiting old friends. Unfortunately, I was having so much fun the whole time that I forgot to take any pictures. All I have are some cute shots from Photobooth, by Vigo and Shane.




Vigo was a little bit worried that our old next-door-neighbor Thomas, with whom he used to play pretty much every single day after school, might not recognize him. But he had nothing to worry about. He fell back in with all the old pals as if he had never been away. Loden and his mom Jen were so kind as to schedule Loden's birthday party to coincide with Vigo's visit, so he got to see almost all of his classmates.

We even managed to get out to Boston to have a nice long brunch with Derrick and Nina and Inka and Lumi. Vigo has always been very keen on little Inka, and she follows him around adoringly in return. The two of them at one point set up a tent around the feet of Lumi, who at the time was a little under 8 months old, and spent some time entertaining her peek-a-boo-style.

Our friends Judy and Dave let us invite some friends over to their house the Saturday before our departure, and this was one of the highlights of our visit. We just generally had a wonderful time during the entire vacation. It was nice to prove to Vigo that I wasn't lying when I said that we'd be back to visit and that he'd get to see all of his friends again.

More Winter News

Recently, Erik and I decided to visit Boston during Vigo's February school vacation. We'll spend the first part of the week in Vermont, skiing, and the second part seeing our friends. All of us are really excited about it.

Vigo's eyes can finally be seen again, since Vigo gave himself one of his famous haircuts last week. He's had lots of compliments on the cut from the other kids at school.



Our calm little winter solstice party went really nicely. Vigo and I made bite-sized bottle cap cookies by using a bottle cap for a cookie cutter.



We all dressed up and walked up to the top of the hill in the park, where we discovered a couple of other groups, who were getting little bonfires going.

Vigo is eagerly beginning to plan his own birthday party, which is more than a month away. I won't give out any details yet, though!

Vigo's German is starting to blossom since we got a TV. We let him watch some cartoons in the morning before school every day, now. He still enjoys Caillou as much as he did when he was three.

We had a really nice Christmas with Erik's older sister Iris in Dessau. Iris is Erik's father's daughter from a first marriage, so we also got to meet Iris's mother, Berbel. Berbel made a delicious herring and beet salad for the festivities along with what seemed like a bottomless supply of homemade cookies! Vigo didn't mind too much not having other kids to play with and spent hours and hours putting together his new Lego set. I had an especially great time on Christmas Eve, when Iris and I walked through the dark woods to the boat house on the river where some of her friends were having mulled wine around a fire outside.



Erik and Vigo and I made Dan and Iris each a board game about themselves. Vigo was very excited to give these presents and he said something really funny about them:
"We made your presents ourselves. But don't worry, they look very professional."

Here's the game of Iris. I forgot to get a photo of Dan's.



On Christmas Day, everyone except for Vigo and I went to the opera. The Show was Fidelio and the production was set in a WWII concentration camp. We figured if we took Vigo to see that for his first opera experience, we'd never get him inside an opera house again.

A week or so after Christmas, I took Vigo to see a special kid showing of Hansel and Gretel at the Deutche Oper here in Berlin. He got a little bit scared about the witch in the first part and kind of wanted to go home at intermission. Here's a picture of him worrying about the fates of poor Hansel and Gretel during the break:



Once the witch actually come on and wasn't just peeking out ominously from behind the trees, he was fine and he really loved the show. He's excited to go back. Our next show will be Swan Lake in February. Here are a couple pictures from the show we saw, including the witch. The singing in this show was just super, too.



We had a free ice skating rink near our apartment for the holidays, but unfortunately we only managed to go to it one time. We also got a couple of sledding nights in, even though I wasn't able to find a proper Berlin-style sled because all of the stores were completely sold out. Here's a picture of Vigo and one of his closest friends, Leander, at the skating rink, and sledding with another of his closest friends, Edward.



We're all still having a great time getting to know Berlin, but we're also very excited to be able to make a qick visit back to Somerville!