Great start for Alice

Alice was looking forward to moving back to Sweden. "I am ready for a new adventure now", was her comment when we made the final decision to move back. When we found out that I was expecting and that the baby would be born in Sweden she even started to long for us to go back (even if I told her that the baby wouldn't be born sooner even if we moved home sooner).

 Of course it was a little nervous to start school in a new class. She had a few friends from her old class, but she had only met them briefly during the last four years, so I would say that she hardly knew them anymore. On top of all this Nils broke his arm the evening before the first day of school, so she had to walk there all by herself. Nothing strange for a regular kid, but for Alice Nils has always been a great support and they always walk together. Oh well, she understood that it was not really her we felt sorry for this day, so she pulled herself together and went by herself. It is just a short walk, very similar the one to Jordan from Seale Avenue last year.

She came home a couple of hours later - so happy! The first day had been great. She was in a fun class with one core teacher that she likes a lot. He is going to have her in math and PE for four years, so it is very good that they get along well. The other core teacher is her (and Nils') Spanish teacher. She is ok, but most likely the regular teacher will come back next fall since she is just on maternity leave this year.

Here is Alice's class, 6C. She is in the front row in her blue and white striped A&F t-shirt. Now, after a couple of weeks, she is even more happy in her class. She has a boyfriend (back row, 5th student from the left, in light blue) and they are a group of girls and boys who hang out together in class, at lunch and during the free time they have in between classes.

She has joined a soccer team, Torns IF, with a bunch of nice girls. There are not as many girls playing soccer here so the team is a mix with girls born her year and a year younger. The whole club is run by volunteering parents and the coaches are parents as well. There is no club around here with professional coaches and I don't want to drive far just to get that. The point is also to be able to play with girls in her school and as it is now she can bike to practice. At least until it gets dark early in the afternoon. The girls on the team are not super competitive, but still they are among the best teams in the region and Alice is very well prepared coming from Savio's practices in PASC. Her new coaches are impressed with her skills and she scored the only goal in her second game, giving her team the lead in the league this fall. Poppy was not happy this evening and I was mostly behind the goal where the grass was bumpy enough to keep her sleeping in the stroller. I took ONE picture though and it happened to be the shot (that was supposed to be a cross), but turned out to be the goal. See below:

And life with Poppy is as good, if not better, than she could ever have wished for. I think she says the words: "she is so cute" every time she sees her. And she is almost always willing to take her when I need to cook dinner, do laundry etc. Changing diapers is not really happening yet, but eventually she'll get to that too. Even being in the car is fun now. And doing homework. 

All in all - life is good for Alice right now!

Tough start for Nils

It is not a secret that Nils is the one in our family who probably misses Palo Alto the most and he was not really looking forward to moving back to Sweden. Ok, reuniting with cousins and other relatives is fun, playing around on the beach is also ok, but when it comes to starting school again he would definitely prefer to start 7th grade at Jordan instead of 6th grade at Tunaskolan. Well, it was going to be Tunaskolan anyway and he was fine with it.

But the evening before school was about to start he was at his 5th soccer practice with his new team, Torns IF. It is a nice group of boys and even if the level of the practice is below PASC standard, the team is competitive and doing well among the other teams in the region. Practically all teams in this age group are trained by parents. They play 8v8 and they don't use the rule Offside. Nils thinks this is very odd, but there is not much he can do about it. This particular evening the coach called me when there was 15 minutes left of the practice. He told me that Nils and one of the other boys had both been running for the ball and Nils had fallen and perhaps broken his wrist. I thought he was exaggerating and asked if he wanted me to come right away to pick him up. The coach said that it was not necessary because the manager and the co-coach were already on their way to the ER with Nils and he wanted one of us to meet them there. Since I had just come home from the hospital myself with diagnosed high blood pressure it was Mats who had to go.

Sure enough it was broken. You didn't even have to be a doctor to realize that. Just look at the picture. With the penny still on he was sitting in the waiting room with the manager and co-coach when Mats arrived. He had been such a sport, said the manager, not complaining a bit after the initial shock and scream right when it happened. After a long wait with only Tylenol to ease the pain they took him in for treatment. 

X-ray to see what was wrong. The largest bone, radius, was completely off (see above). Many injektions around the wrist with anaesthetic and then they pulled the bones back in place. Painful, but necessary. Then they put a blue, plastic cast on and another round of x-rays to see that the bones were in the right place.

At 1am, after 5 hours in the hospital, they were back home. Alice and I were sleeping since many hours not knowing how Nils would feel about going to school in the morning, but we had our guesses. And of course he was not at all in shape to start school the next day. He was in a lot of pain and had not slept well, so he spent the day home with me. Alice was sad to walk by herself, but there was not much to do about it. She came home a couple of hours later though - very happy. She was in a good class and was already looking forward to going back the next day.