Every day I pick the kids up from school and they are STARVING! Every parent says that this is the case and I think it is partly because they eat lunch very early (11am for Mia's grade), they have no afternoon snack, half the time kids like Terence 'don't like it' so don't eat anything at lunch and my last idea is because they just work it off with all the physical and mental activity that school requires. Most days I take a snack to them so they can dig into it as soon as they see me. Other times we go and get a snack together. In the warmer months we go to the nearby ice cream kiosk and other times we drive out to Solymar on our way to get Ali and stop at the delicious German bakery. Terence always gets a Fahejes Csiga - 'Cinnamon Snail' is the exact translation but cinnamon roll is what we know this as in the US. The ones over here don't have all the melted sugar on it and are probably 1/2 the amount of dough. Mia always gets a Csokis Croissant - 'Chocolate Croissant' (not very German).
Today my plan was to hit the Solymar bakery with them on our way to Heidi Ovoda. Mia couldn't wait and was jumping up and down begging for something as we walked next door (where 1st grade and above is) to get Terence. I found a brand new pack of Strawberry Lime gum (new flavor I found in London last weekend) and gave her the entire pack. Before I knew it she was surrounded by a bunch of kids from her class who were also waiting to pick up big brothers / sisters. Emma, a little Belgian girl in Mia's class, was the first girl Mia gave a piece of gum to. I asked Mia to first ask Emma's mom if it were okay but she didn't get to it until Emma had already popped it in her mouth. Emma's mom, Benedicte, explained that it was her first experience with gum and she leaned over to explain to Emma that she shouldn't swallow it. Or at least this is what I guessed she said as my French is nil.
As Terence came out Emma had convinced her mom to let Mia go home with them for an after school playdate. Mia was very shy about receiving the invitation and looked up at me and said, 'but I'm afraid of dogs'. I reminded her that they didn't have dogs. I only remembered this from Emma's birthday party back in June. Benedicte heard this and repeated that they didn't have dogs and only a cat. Mia looked up at me with a worried expression and said, 'but mama, I'm afraid of cats'. Ridiculous! We have 3 dogs and 2 cats! Benedicte suggested that I drive her over and stay for a couple minutes until she was comfortable, which I did. Terence was upset that he didn't have a playdate but it all worked out because once we got over there Terence ignored Louisa who is in his class for the 2nd year in a row and played with Louisa and Emma's 8 year old brother Felix. They had the best time climbing fruit trees in their backyard. Fortunately, Benedicte invited both of them to stay while I ran off to get Ali from nursery.
After I picked up Ali I came home and dropped off the car and loaded Ali into her wagon. We walked the approximately half a km to Benedicte's home with Blue and got there just after 5pm. They were all having the best time and we agreed to have Emma (maybe Felix too) over next week. It'll be interesting as I seriously don't speak ANY French but kids just seem to understand...
Very exciting how a piece of gum can change the entire course of the day and maybe even the year. Mia and Terence have now befriended some great kids that they were possibly too shy to approach up until now.
