Little things are teaching us big lessons

Stone and Ivan (yes, Stone is eating his shirt)

This was the highlight of my day. I pick Stone up from recess between 11:00-12:00 every day, and usually spot him kicking a ball, running around or getting a drink... but always by himself. He always says he doesn't have any friends. But today he said "Hey Mom, look, I made a friend!!" I asked what his name was and he shrugged, "I dunno. He speaks Spanish!" I asked the little boy and his name is Ivan, and Stone said these golden words, "I learned that I can have a friend even if he speaks Spanish!" A huge breakthrough. I find it interesting that of all the children in his class, it was this boy - he was born in Spain but his parents are Swiss. I wonder if it was the physical similarities that made Ivan willing to break through the language barrier and befriend the new kid, or if it was that he was used to his parents speaking a different language and so a non-Spanish speaker wasn't so weird to him (even if it was a language he didn't understand). It could just be chance that the two ended up together, but I have a feeling that Ivan's broader social framework enabled him to connect with the "other" more readily than other children with less exposure. This is one thing I'm hoping that my children will gain from this experience abroad. That their hearts will be expanded to feel empathy for a much larger spectrum of God's children than they would had they had less exposure to other ways of looking, speaking, living.

I was putting laundry away in Stone's room and looked to see him hanging out here. Does anyone know of a career where you get paid to climb stuff? This kid just can't stay on the ground!

Other events today:

Lucy went back to Ballet after having observed it on Thursday, and she had a FANTASTIC experience!! It was a great level for her and I was touched by her willingness to adapt to her teacher's different way of relating, and also by her teacher's willingness to see the best in Lucy and soften her approach to her (no clapping this time). The developed quite a lovely rapport today, and I learned a couple of valuable lessons.

1. In response to my blog post about Lucy giving her mean teacher another try, my wise friend Christie emailed,

"Through multiple opportunities I learned to value the mean teacher (I probably am one as well:) and found them to be extremely loyal, authentic and useful. My first mean teacher (6th grade) was hard for me, the second (high school) was more manageable and by college the meanest of them all ended up being one of my favorite teachers of all time.  So there is hope!"

I realized that I so value kindness and gentleness that I have very little tolerance for other approaches - and so I call "deal breaker!" too soon and miss out on other, extremely valuable characteristics. Of course there is a line at which a person's behavior becomes abusive, but overall I would say it would serve me well to develop a thicker skin and be willing to tolerate a brusque manner in order to learn different, valuable lessons. 

2. Sometimes you bump up against someone at precisely the wrong moment. This woman yelled and clapped loudly in Lucy's face, and so for Lucy, she was the yelling, clapping-in-face woman (i.e., "mean teacher.") This woman didn't know my daughter - what she saw in that moment was a girl with a look of misery on her face who burst into tears and ran out of the room suddenly. So she could have categorized her as the fragile, bad attitude girl (i.e., "poor student.") It's a good idea to suspend judgement and give people lots more chances and see them in other contexts until they become whole people in our eyes. 

3. Don't quit something until you've really given it a fair chance (and sometimes that takes a long time). Man, I was close to letting Lucy walk away from that place and never go back! And we would have missed this whole learning opportunity. This is overwhelmingly the lesson I've been learning so far in Spain - push through the pain! I have no problem doing that myself, but it's really hard for me to see my kids cry (and my kids are HUGE feelers and very dramatic expressers so it always feels like a big deal)... and force them to continue. 

And that is it for comments on Dance.

Other things from today:

Stone is doing much better in general. Sophie's spirits are now starting to sink. The kids are very nice to her and she understands a lot at school, but she says that she mostly sits quietly at school and doesn't speak much, so her goal is to talk with friends every day at recess. It's so much easier for her to sit alone and observe, or go hang out with Lindsay and Lucy. She could really use a friend! There's no one her age in the American family, and no one her age in our friend's family in Amsterdam, so it's been awhile since Sophie had a good buddy. She will be so excited to go back to America and connect with English speaking little girls her own age! She is our most social child so the loneliness is hardes on her I think (she tells me every day how homesick she is).

My evenings have been spent on Trip Advisor and cheap airline and train websites - we discovered that things get booked way ahead of time so we decided to get all our travel on the calendar and paid for right now. We have some really fun things coming up... but I underestimated how much time it takes to plan it all!! My eyeballs are shriveling from all the time on a computer screen. 

It's much cooler now and it even rained for a bit today! Highs in the 70's all week, with sprinkles. And leaves are turning yellow!

Last thing: I went for a run yesterday and Erik loaded his iPod for me with new songs. I learned again how powerful music is! Some of my favorite songs I hadn't heard in a long time, and then... from 30 Rock, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah. ("Werewolf Bar Mitvah, spooky, scary! Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves...") I laughed and laughed and thought that I take myself and my life waaaay too seriously! I need a little less analyzing, a little more Tina Fey.