Since E is going back to the US for a week, today was the last reasonable day to go and rent our skis for the season before things start to sell out. So we took a bus and train to the rental place (next to Ikea!) That was fine. We were measured, weighed, fitted for boots. Then the hard part. Paying was hard, but much less than renting by the day. I'm talking about getting everything home. Skis and ski boots are shockingly heavy. Of course, they are awkward, too.
We put together what we could. We kicked the littles out of their stroller and filled it with boots and little skis. R carried the poles, E carried the skis, S wrangled the littles. Then we got to Ikea and thought, wouldn't it be a shame not to stop in? So I took T to reduce the wrangling. E insisted they could make it home that way. They did, with lots of help from samaritans and some stroller use which I would have freaked out over if I had seen it. We still have to get helmets.
T loved Ikea! He has so many ideas for remodeling our kitchen now. He wants drawers behind doors, pull out shelves, and everything should be white. He also wants a stainless steel wall oven. Who knew?
He had to settle for choosing some Christmas decorations. The people who are renting to us left a box in their storage space which they said we could use. However, I am terrified of something happening to their special things, so we spent a little at Ikea and will make decorations, too. T's favorite finds were a decorative platter which he informs me is a cookie plate, an advent calendar shaped like Santa which he tells me will be filled somehow, and a candle with red hearts. I don't know how much we will decorate - we will be skiing Christmas week.
I thought it was funny that T is so sure that the advent calendar will be magically filled. The other day when I told him Santa is watching he was extremely skeptical. He demanded to know how that was possible. I told him that Santa has a magic snowball that he uses like a crystal ball. T argued that Santa isn't magic. I asked how he thought Santa got his work done. T shrugged. Not his concern. Being spied on was the issue! So I went on youtube and found the scene in Santa Claus is Coming to Town in which Santa uses his snowball. "I guess you were right," T conceded. Not long later he asked if it would be okay for him to lower the window shades.
T and I got home from Ikea pretty late. I could tell T was tired and dreading the walk up the hill. But he didn't have to - E was waiting at the train station with the bike and trailer! T was thrilled. He still had one foot in the train when he started yelling, "Daddy, I want a bike ride!" I decided to walk up the back way, which E and R insist is much faster, but only in that direction. I didn't realize that a good part of the path is pitch black. It was kind of nice, really, with the fallen leaves and the sound of the stream nearby.
I got home to find ski boots stuffed into all the closet spaces where I had planned to stuff Ikea Christmas things. They'll have to go down in the bomb shelter storage area with the skis.
We are all feeling better now. R was out of school through Wednesday. She probably could have stayed home on Thursday, too, but three days is the limit before you need a doctor's note and we didn't want to get into that. By Friday she was better anyway. When she got home she could tell that the housekeeper had come. "I can smell again!" she said. She is still coughing, but it seems to be getting better. It's not keeping her up all night.
Halloween was strange. My research had indicated no Halloween. The girls had all sorts of conflicting information from their friends. One of S's Swiss friends told S that her plan was to watch tv and eat candy, so that's what we decided to do, too. We made jack-o-lanterns, the littles dressed as pirates and S was a cat. They went from room to room in our apartment for candy (the bedrooms, the playroom, and the bathroom). The bedroom was last and the kids all settled in to eat their candy and watch Monsters vs Aliens and Donald Duck Halloween specials. We did have one set of trick or treaters - the worst kids from S's class. They had no idea what they were doing. Some of them had costumes on, but didn't know the etiquette of taking candy. Were they all supposed to have a piece? no one knew. But that was the least of their etiquette concerns. From what we could see they had caught other people by surprise. They had things in their baskets (not bags!) like fruit, rice cakes, and a liter of coke.
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