Eighty percent

80%. That's about what I understood at my very first meeting on the Eltern-Aktiv committee at Fiona's kindergarten. You are wondering why on Earth would I go to this meeting, held all in German, on a Wednesday evening. Good question. I wondered it myself as I was racing away from my house in the cold, knowing that the grocery store was calling my name, the dishwasher was competing with it, and that emails don't read themselves. But I went anyway- because I decided I should go, because it's something I would have done in Haverhill and why should I let the German speakers stop me (!), because I'd like to meet some other parents with small children (Germany, with its negative birth rate, is NOT exactly booming with toddlers) and because I want to hang with some German speakers to improve my own German. Believe it or not, we speak English all day at school, and then all afternoon/evening at home, so while I have excellent restaurant German, my everyday German it not quite fluent.

80%. I am pretty sure (who could be totally sure unless you had a handy-dandy translator with whom to check your answers) that I got 80% of what went on at the meeting. It helps that I understand the issues that parents and teachers have- there's a (gasp!) bully in the class (they actually used the phrase "problem-Kind" which I know you all realize is "problem child") and guess who it is! It's the BITING BABY of September fame. They wanted to recap the Christmas Party and discuss the Fasching (Carnival, sort of like Halloween/Mardi Gras) party coming up in February. And also, it seems that TWENTY-SIX children are not sleeping at nap time and there are all sorts of reasons. The big one I got was that the parents aren't really doing their part on the weekends, because the children are sleeping better as the week goes on, but Monday throws them all off. I understand that in any language. Of course, all eyes went to me when Heike used Fiona as an example of a child who a. needs her sleep and b. follows directions and c. is the first to fall asleep and the last to wake up. They were all very proud of her. Not so proud of the Biting Baby who, apparently, hits and bites during nap time, and also runs around the room. (An aside. Fiona cannot sleep at home without white noise, Dumbo, the blankets the right way, books, etc. And she can sleep with this Problem-Kind racing about!? Again with the computer man's line: "How can this be?")

80%. I think that's pretty good. AND they want to start English lessons for the little ones and they want me to teach them. We'll see how the schedule works out. I was exhausted by the end of it (and yes, I answered the siren call of the grocery store AND the dishwasher, which is why I'm up so late!) and can see how hard it is for my own students. But. 80%. Go me!