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.