Die Kaffeestube - German and Austrian cyber Kaffee und Kuchen

[admylin]

Kaffeeklatsch for anyone in a German speaking country or interested in German, Kommt herein und setz euch!

I hope all the illness has gone away and you can make the meeting thatis.

That sounds really interesting admylin! Can I come too?

I do use drive through banking. Today I used the drive through lane to drop off at the charity shop, then drove to the petrol station. Oregon doesn't allow you to fill up yourself so I didn't get out of the car at all, then drove straight from there to the drive through coffee shack. This was in a round-trip from dropping dd off at school. It's about a 50 minute walk there and back to school so I will definitely be doing that more often when it is consistently warmer and there is no snow left on the sidewalks. Stupidly sidewalks only get built if there is a house on the lot. So where there are gaps, there is no sidewalk. It is not conducive to walking but dd's school really try to encourage it. Will get dh to fix my bike and put the trailer back on so we can cycle next week.

Linzer - don't you hate it when people treat your teaching like a bit of a hobby? I hope that the school will just be suggesting a few settling in techniques for your ds and the maths tutor makes a real difference for dd.

Wishing you all lovely Friday evenings and weekends.

The English-speaking playgroup was really nice this morning. I was worried all the toddlers running around bashing each other and fighting over toys would be a bit too much for DS but he had a great time watching what was going on & being stroked by lots of curious toddlers.

I'm hoping the crawling comes soon as the screeching is really becoming quite grating, but it's the weekend so DH is around to share the load.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Sorry, pressed post too soon.

Silken Glad your DD is better. The licking the thumb technique sounds good - I'll bear it in mind as DS is a thumb sucker.

admylin Your DD's work experience sounds really interesting! Much better than cleaning for a week. Do you think she will want to go down the geology route in the future?

jenny How sweet that your DD wants to sell her pictures to raise money for your holiday? Do you think you could persuade some family & friends to buy some for 10c each or something? At least that way she won't be disappointed. Bless! Good news that S is walking - love the idea of a baby doing pirate impressions :)

Linzer That's a bit rude of the other parents! Do they have form for this or was it just a one-off mistake? Maybe the school just want to make a few suggestions to help DS out. Is this something they do for all the children?

I spent a few months working in Central America in my last job and they had drive through banking & cash machines there, but that was a security thing. If you just walked up to a cash point in the street you were quite likely to be mugged & murdered on the spot!

admylin, great info re the Alpro yoghurts, that is wonderful. I don't suppose you know if there's their chocolate milk too? I love that stuff!

Drive thru banking! Wow!

Hi Everyone

Properly fed up today, not sure why - took dd swimming first thing but since 10am or so have achieved nothing but refereeing the kids; wet Sundays in Bavaria are uniquely depressing I find! It doesn't help that dd has now decided that a new friend is the only one she wants to play with, and has turned down 2 other friends who phoned wanting her to play, and has instead spent the afternoon waiting for the new flavour of the month to return from wherever she is and return her call (dd left an answer machine message, which I do think is relatively sophisticated for a 6 year old :) )

admylin do they do that work experience once a year every year of secondary? If so that sounds rather a hassle to organise annually... DS1 has been determined for ever that he wants to be in the police, not sure how we'd arrange that for work experience! Guess we have a while to think about it as he's only 4! Dd wants to be a teacher currently, although sometimes also a model or a zoo keeper... Guess teaching at least would be easy to arrange one way or another.

No Hun I have seen lots of Alpro Soya stuff in the shops I think, I think that will be one of the easier things to source (unlike "proper" tea bags)...

Jenny that is both sweet and heart breaking about your dd's picture selling idea - my dd did something similar last summer, wanting to raise money by selling flowers to give to a charity appeal she'd seen on television - of course nobody is going to walk past and pay her ?1 for a bunch of wild flowers/ weeds picked in the field behind the playground, it's so hard to know how to break it to them gently... I ended up buying lots of the flowers and giving DS1 money to buy some, but she was still disappointed :(

DD won a drawing competition at school - she came home so excited on Friday "Mummy I've got some especially happy and fantastic news for you" she said, with her little face so smiley she somehow looked about 3 :) She won some table tennis bats with a chess board printed on one and chess pieces, for some reason... her picture now gets sent on to an inter-schools competition. She is having good luck with competitions recently, having only won a sledge last month, but I think I'll restrain myself from hoping she'll win the family holiday which is the prize for the final winner of the drawing competition! I am proud of her though, especially as she's the youngest child in her class (and the entire school), and as she was having wobbles about her maths recently, so it's good she's been reminded she's good at something :)

Argh I had paragraphs, I swear, where did they go!!!

Again, cut and paste and put the paragraphs back in...

Hi Everyone Properly fed up today, not sure why - took dd swimming first thing but since 10am or so have achieved nothing but refereeing the kids; wet Sundays in Bavaria are uniquely depressing I find! It doesn't help that dd has now decided that a new friend is the only one she wants to play with, and has turned down 2 other friends who phoned wanting her to play, and has instead spent the afternoon waiting for the new flavour of the month to return from wherever she is and return her call (dd left an answer machine message, which I do think is relatively sophisticated for a 6 year old smile )

admylin do they do that work experience once a year every year of secondary? If so that sounds rather a hassle to organise annually... DS1 has been determined for ever that he wants to be in the police, not sure how we'd arrange that for work experience! Guess we have a while to think about it as he's only 4! Dd wants to be a teacher currently, although sometimes also a model or a zoo keeper... Guess teaching at least would be easy to arrange one way or another.

No Hun I have seen lots of Alpro Soya stuff in the shops I think, I think that will be one of the easier things to source (unlike "proper" tea bags)...

Jenny that is both sweet and heart breaking about your dd's picture selling idea - my dd did something similar last summer, wanting to raise money by selling flowers to give to a charity appeal she'd seen on television - of course nobody is going to walk past and pay her ?1 for a bunch of wild flowers/ weeds picked in the field behind the playground, it's so hard to know how to break it to them gently... I ended up buying lots of the flowers and giving DS1 money to buy some, but she was still disappointed sad.

DD won a drawing competition at school - she came home so excited on Friday "Mummy I've got some especially happy and fantastic news for you" she said, with her little face so smiley she somehow looked about 3 smile She won some table tennis bats with a chess board printed on one and chess pieces, for some reason... her picture now gets sent on to an inter-schools competition. She is having good luck with competitions recently, having only won a sledge last month, but I think I'll restrain myself from hoping she'll win the family holiday which is the prize for the final winner of the drawing competition! I am proud of her though, especially as she's the youngest child in her class (and the entire school), and as she was having wobbles about her maths recently, so it's good she's been reminded she's good at something :)

:) Ah, never mind, you tried! :)

Thanks re the Alpro news. Hurrah. I don't like builders' tea, so I won't miss proper tea, and DH

Darn, DS hit send before I'd finished.

... and DH says he wants to give up tea anyway.

Will reply again later, DS is trying to take the iPad off me, there is only so long I can win!

Gatorhow did the crawling come on at the weekend? No, I doubt that dd will go into the geology field but for 1 day it'LL be nice to look at. She would like to go into architecture or design but she's only 12 so who knows what else she will discover an interest in!

Thatis no idea what happened to your paragraphs! Maybe MN was playing up. Hope you're mot feeling so fed up today. I sometimes get the Sunday blues when everyone is just lounging about and the stupid TV is on non stop and no one wants to even go for a walk with me.

Yes the work experience is once a year every year of secondary for 1 day. It used to be called girls day now it's Zukunftstag. it's not too hard to organise. The first couple of years you can take them to work with you or another family member and then the website has a few offers of organised things see here. More difficult is in year 9 I think they have to do a 2 week work experience thing and they obviously have to apply and go somewhere they are interested in.

Linzer hope the school really just want to ask you if you think he'll be OK at school and not tell you they've made their minds up already. They could ask at Kindergargen about his behaviour there and get some other opinions. For all they know, maybe your ds was just having a bad day like we all do. When is the meeting?

NoHun I saw soya chocolate milk the other day! Might try it. It wasn't the alpro brand, was in my local supermarket (Netto) next to their own brand of soya milk. How's the packing and sorting going?

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I finally succumbed to the DC's stomach bug so we had to cancel our plans for Saturday, which was a shame as we were really looking forward to our friends' visit, but hopefully they'll be able to come over in a couple of weeks' time.

Linzer DH wants to go in to see the head on Thursday morning as it's the only morning he has time this week, but hasn't managed to reach her on the phone so has e-mailed and is still waiting to hear back from her. Yes, I'm taking the fact that they've invited us to a meeting rather than just telling us, for example, that he'll be going to the Vorschule in September as a good sign. I'm also planning on asking at KiGa what they think, but forgot to do so this morning, as it would be good to have their back-up. Vorschule might actually have been quite helpful for DD1 but I really don't think that DS needs to go.

NoHun I don't like really strong tea (my parents are always commenting on my tea looking like dishwater) so Austrian/German tea would probably be perfect for me, but I still import it as I feel the quality is better and that, as a British person, it is my duty to drink proper British tea and not the Twinings etc. that they fob off on forriners. I was complemented on my tea by an Irish friend the other day, so obviously the quality is appreciated (and at least it's fairly light to import).

Thatis I saw someone else on another thread having the lack-of-paragraphs problem yesterday afternoon, so I think MN must have had a temporary blip. Well done to your DD on winning the drawing competition.

Gator Glad you enjoyed the playgroup; is it a regular thing?
The mother I wrote about on Friday is definitely the most unreliable person I know; the DDs used to walk home from school with her DD and I was getting quite fed up of her DD forgetting to wait for them/her forgetting to tell me that her DD wouldn't be walking that day, etc. (I once had a phone call from the school to say that DD2 was waiting outside for her friend, but that the class had finished an hour early that day.) I've actually cooled the friendship a bit because, although she's a really lovely person, there's only so much flakiness I'm willing to put up with.

Yes, hopefully the school just wants to make suggestions/ask our opinion. It's not something they do with all children, though; I don't know any other parents who've been asked to see the headteacher (although I'm sure some others must have been) and we never had any problems with the DDs either. They can both be very shy and quiet too, but weren't clingy at that age like DS is now.

Jenny I didn't find the USA - or not the part where we lived, at any rate - conducive to walking at all. It encourages you to get very lazy too; we would drive to the entrance of one shop at the shopping mall, for example, and then drive on to the next shop when we'd finished there as there was just nowhere to walk. I was also slightly nervous of getting shot during hunting season!

Update: have just had an e-mail from the head. She wrote that the teachers at the individual Stationen noticed that DS "manche Arbeitsaufträge nicht richtig ausgeführt hat, bzw. aus Schüchternheit sich auch nicht getraut hat". We have to go back in mid-May so that she can check his Schulreife. Great, another two months to wait. The thing is, it was only at the first Station that he refused to participate and I'm sure he was fine at all the others (he did need a little encouragement to speak at the Station that was testing his German, admittedly, but I'm sure it would have been obvious that his German was fine). We're going in to see her on Thursday morning too, anyway. The other problem is that I can imagine him being equally clingy in May and refusing to speak then too. Aargh. I'd just like to have it sorted.

Linzer May is good - that gives you time to talk about it to ds too. Maybe if you try to convince him that if he wants to go with his best friend then he has to try his best to speak and answer questions or he might have to go to Vorschulklasse? You could always save something up as a bribe - something he really wants that he will get if he joins in? Sorry, maybe not the best suggestion but in desperation I always turned to bribary!

Hope you're recovering from the stomach bug. Are you back to eating?

I watch far too many CSI, SVU and the likes of Criminal Intent. I'd also be scared in the US. Was slightly strange walking down the gun aisle in the Outdoor and Jeans shop that we went to in Texas.

admylin No further with the crawling - I think he's actually regressed as he was starting to pick up the coordination needed between his arms and his legs and now he is back to flailing. Ah well! I let him try a tiny bit of ice cream at the weeked and he loved it! So much so that he grabed my spoon off me and started gumming it. I was going to wait until this weekend coming to start introducing solids (as he will be 26 weeks then) but he has already grabbed a yoghurt and slurped that up and he was quite happy with my ice cream yesterday! I was thinking of going down the BLW route and am quite excited about watching him figure out carrots etc :)
The work experience thing sounds really interesting! I wish we had had that when we were at school.

Thatis Well done to your DD! I bet she was really proud -that's really sweet.
Are you feeling a bit better today? Wet Sundays are rubbish in general, I imagine in rural Bavaria they are even worse.

Linzer Are you feeling a bit better now? I hope your weekend wasn'T totally ruined by the stomach bug.
The playgroup is every Friday and I think we will go regularly. DS seemed quite happy watching what the other kids were doing (mostly arguing over toy fire engines :) ) and a few of the toddlers were fascinated by him and were stroking his hands etc, which was cute.
Good luck with the meeting at school. I'm sure they will take your thoughts into consideration - after all, you know him better than they do and are the best person to say whether he was just having a bad day or was just being a bit clingy etc. Let us know how you get on.

Nohun I think I've seen the Alpro chocolate milk. I'll have a look next time I'm in the supermarket and let you know. (I've defintely seen the normal Alpro milk, but not sure about the flavoured ones).
I just had a quick peek at your latest FB pics and your little boy is very cute!

DS is having a mega nap, which makes a nice change, so instead of doing something productive, I'm drinking coffee, eating biscuits & MNing. Lovely!

Our local Walmart has pink Barbie hunting rifles - I kid you not!

Glad you have a meeting sorted out for ds Linzer. I hope it gets him the support he needs to settle in nicely.

It's great the playgroup worked out so well Gator. It's nice to have something regular to look forward to!

Well done to your dd thatis!

Got to go and rescue ds2 from the filing cabinet. Waves to everyone else!

LT, hope you get better soon.
I'm afraid I don't really understand your update though! :)

ad, I love CSI/Law and Order/Without A Trace etc! And having watched The Killing, you aren't safe in Europe either! :) So there!

Ooh, Gator, if you could let me know about the Alpro chocolate milk, that would be fab! Though I'd probably be skinnier if I didn't guzzle the stuff!
And ah thanks re my little cutie DS! I think so! :o

Waves back at tadj!

admylin Yes, I tried that - said that if he didn't join in, then he probably wouldn't be able to start school with his best friend and was that what he wanted? He said no, but he still wouldn't join in. I also tried to bribe him with a cuddly toy (he's obsessed with buying them atm) but that didn't work either.

Yes, I'm back to normal now thanks. I started eating again on Saturday and back to normal portions yesterday so my flat stomach didn't last, unfortunately!

Gator The playgroup sounds great, and it's good that it's a regular thing. Is it near to you? We used to have to go into Vienna for English-language playgroups, which was a bit of a hassle, but worth it to be able to speak English.

Jenny Barbie hunting rifles? I was shocked enough to see "normal" guns for sale in Wal-Mart; don't remember any pink ones, though!

NoHun Was it what the head had written that you didn't understand or my whole update? Basically, DS had school enrolment a couple of weeks ago, which involved the children going round the school in small groups. There were six Stationen, where they had to do various activities (speaking, counting numbers on dice and drawing circles round different shapes in different colours, physical activities in the gym, etc.). DS was ridiculously clingy, refused to go round on his own so I had to accompany him the whole time, and refused to do any of the activities at the first Station (in the gym). The headteacher said in her e-mail that the teachers had noticed that he didn't perform the tasks correctly, or rather refused to perform them due to shyness.

Anyway, had a chat with his KiGa teacher this morning, which was quite interesting. She said that as far as his knowledge, reading, numbers, etc. are concerned, there are absolutely no problems. However, he can be quite unsure of himself and seems to be worried about failure. She also thinks we need to build up his self-confidence as he obviously sees himself as the baby of the family, really looks up to DD2 in particular (and wants to do everything that she can do, but can't). I got the impression that she thought Vorschule would be a good thing for him (she was obviously of the "gönn him that extra year" mindset) but said that we should listen to what the head has to say and take her advice. She also thinks he's really going to struggle with writing as his graphomotor (?) skills aren't great, and she definitely has a point about that. And he's still very much a child, is very focused on playing (although surely starting school doesn't mean that you stop playing?) and his attachment to his cuddly toys just underlines that.

One of my major concerns is splitting him up from his best friend (which his best friend's mum has also said would be a disaster for her DS); she didn't think that would necessarily be a bad thing, that DS would find new friends and that they might distract each in other in class, but I'm really not sure. I know, from being a very shy child myself, how much confidence a good friend can give you. Then again, that probably shouldn't be the main criterion. Am now feeling more than ever.

Morning

Not much sleep happened here - not that it usually does, but instead of the usual broken night I was up between 1am and 3am watching recorded cbeebies Baby Jake with a feverish and miserable 10 month old - took ages for paracetamol suppository (never used them on him before but he was being sick so seemed best way) to bring his temp down and even longer for him to settle enough to doze off. He has whatever bug ds1 had on Thursday I guess.

Linzer argh at having to wait til May to sort out your ds's school start. We had to wait til June to find out which of 2 partner schools the kids from our village would get sent to, due to a slight anomaly in the population of 2011 school starters, and it was a very uncomfortable limbo not knowing - luckily they all got sent to the closer village Grundschule not the partner school which is a year 1-10 Hauptschule which just seems so huge for the youngest ones and is a longer bus ride away. I would go with admylin and bribe him to reply when spoken to and do 'his best' at all the activities - my ds1 can be a bit like yours and I take that approach and am quite firm - most recently used it for his swim course - an icecream at the eiscafe after but only if he did his best, no crying and join in, and he needed 1 reminder (at first he started crying for me when we had to leave the pool side but I went back and spoke to him) then he joined in, reluctantly at first but within 10 mins was loving it. I find it somewhat odd as dd at the same age was a tiny thing who people often assumed to be a lot younger at first glance, but was super confident and very outgoing , where ds1 is big for his age so people think he is at least 5, but he is much more of a baby than dd was!

Jenny I am lost for words at the Barbie rifles!

Gator that's great about the toddlers group, I used to take ds1 to one and it was a bit of a lifeline being able to chat in English once a week, but it folded and the other English speaking ones are too far into Munich to be practical travel wise. Good luck with the blw - it is what dd did (she hated to be spoon fed) though with the boys I've done more of a mix for various reasons.

Grizzly poorly baby fighting sleep on my lap with laptop on the sofa at my side is giving me a crick in my neck! Sorry I've missed replying to some people!

sorry, cross post on the bribing - different things obviously work for different kids!

NoHun, I knew it - there must be a reason for not going into the forest on my own! Haven't seen The Killing and maybe I shouldn't by the sound of it!

Linzer it must be difficult to decide although it doesn't sound like you will have a choice in the matter either , if the head/school decide he's not ready. All you can hope for is that your ds suddenly decides he will join in and go for it at the May meeting. I've only heard positive things about dc who stay back a year though.

Thatis hope your ds feels better soon. Look at it this way, he's getting all this from the older 2 and he's going to have a super strong immune system by the time he starts school!

Dd is really unsure about hockey at the moment. The teams are in age groups and at the moment she's in B but they want to put her in A which is 13 to 15 year olds. She won't be 13 for another 6 months and she was looking forward to the outdoor season as a B. However thexy've moved a load of C girls up to B so I guess they want to make room. There is meant to be a 3 day training camp over easter (costing ?90 - bit much if you ask me when it's a Verein and trainers are volunteers) but she might not even go to that now.

admylin Sounds like hockey is causing one problem after another atm; is your DD thinking about giving up? It must be frustrating if she enjoys the actual game but there are all these "side issues".

Thatis Hope your DS is better soon. I've used suppositories a couple of times on DS and they've always worked very quickly on him - much quicker than Calpol etc., in fact.

I'm slowly coming round to the idea that Vorschule might actually be a better option for DS. Not because of the shyness - which I think is the reason that the school want to see us - but because of his writing/drawing (graphomotor) skills, as I think a year for him to catch up on those might do him good. When I compare his colouring in with that of the other boys at the English class, for example, he's far less neat - and they often tell him how "schiach" his pictures are (the KiGa teacher did say that other children at school might point out that he's not good at certain things, which would knock his confidence). He really struggles to hold a pencil properly and can just about write his name, but again, far less neatly than the other boys.

DH also pointed out that, for boys in particular, it's not great to be the smallest in the class (DS is also fairly small for his age). The KiGa teacher said we should try to make the Vorschule schmackhaft to him, so we were talking generally about it yesterday and I told him that if he did happen to go, he would then be one of the biggest boys in the 1. Klasse. He really seemed to like that idea, so it's definite progress as he was dead set against the Vorschule before (it only came up because I asked for him to be in the 1. Klasse taught by the current Vorschullehrerin, and he was worried this meant he would be going to Vorschule). We'll see what the head says tomorrow, anyway.

Linzer, I think it'll be less stress for your ds if he can wait another year. What are the hours like for Vorschule? How many dc will there be in that group?

Yesterday dd didn't go to Hockey practise. She did have a lot of homework - a difficult Ballade similar to the Knabe im Moor one to zusammenfassen and French including vocab.

Today is also training but the school has an open day (well just afternoon) for future 5th year dc and she is singing in French (Alouette) with a group from the French class so she might not make it. Next week I would like her to decide though as we can then cancel the payments and let them know she won't be coming.

AFAIK the Vorschulklasse has the same hours as the other 1. Klassen, from 8 until 11.50 am. There are 10 or 11 children in the class this year, which would mean more individual attention from the teacher too. I'm also worried that if we didn't send him to Vorschule, we might regret it later - whereas I don't think we would regret sending him (the issue of separating him from his best friend aside). The son of a friend of mine is just about to go back from a 3rd year to a 2nd year class (he's not emotionally mature enough, according to the teacher - he has a July birthday too), and I'd really like to avoid something like that happening. DH also thinks that if he struggles in the first year, he's going to struggle all the way through school - beyond primary school.

Summarising a ballad would be beyond me! I just hope that DD1 won't need as much help with her homework when she gets to secondary school; I can't see myself being able to help with anything much other than English. She had her German Schularbeit yesterday, which was a Nacherzählung; it was actually a text that she'd already practised with DH, so she didn't find it too difficult and thinks she'll get a 2. Mind you, she thought she was going to get a 1 or a 2 in the maths Schularbeit.

Linzer We're going to keep ds1 back for an extra KiGa year (he is a Sept birthday so would be the very youngest in the year if he went to school in 2013; and comparing him to dd at the same age he seems a good year younger, except that unlike your ds he is tall, so will possibly be the tallest if he is also one of the oldest in the class) - it seems to be a pretty universal opinion that for boys especially the advantages of staying back a year vastly outway any minor disadvantages. We are lucky that his best friend, who is a month older, is also staying back an extra year - his parents had decided that right from before he even started KiGa - but his friend from next door is an April birthday and his mum won't keep him back unless she is told to - but I am rather glad than otherwise that they will be separated!

admylin nsounds like you and your dd will be well rid of hockey, what a pity all the pushy parent politics overshadowed the sport element!

Still have an ill baby here and am getting even less sleep than usual, if such a thing is possible - poor boy just grizzles and cries when not asleep, except for an hour or so window each time a new dose of meds kicks in, when he gets all hyperactive and climbs things (and falls off them if I'm not on my toes) he can climb onto the sofa, onto full sized chairs, up the bookcase, onto the coffee table, not to mention the stairs (when I took ds to his swimming lesson on Sat dh decided to cut his nails and took his eye off ds2, who was playing by his feet, and looked up and he was gone - dd found him upstairs in her bedroom... I am sure the other 2 weren't such dedicated climbers at 10 months, and it's impossible to babyproof fully as we'd have to remove all furniture!

What's the cut-off date for starting school there, Thatis? It's 31st August here, so children with September birthdays are the oldest in the class. It's very unusual here for parents to decide to keep children back a year, or rather to send them to Vorschule - it always seems to be the school's decision, or at least suggestion. DH's nephew switched to the Vorschule after a couple of months and I'm sure they've never regretted it; he's doing very well at Gymnasium now.

Sympathies on the sleep deprivation; I remember all too well just how horrible it is. I also found that DS (no. 3) was into absolutely everything in a way that the other two weren't, although not until he was a bit older - he didn't even start crawling until he was 12 months.