Busy week

I left my camera at school, so this photo of the new orange purslane plant that we bought last week and hung on the front porch will have to suffice. This has been a week of beginnings; Marcela began teaching her art class at The Art Center, three classes a day. The kids went to their own classes, and Deontae, one of our neighbor's kids, joined them. On Thursday I began day long workshops to prepare for Autumn Term, the three-week freshman course that all Eckerd freshmen attend before school starts in September. I am teaching a course called Urban Ecology in Florida: St. Petersburg, and that began yesterday morning (yes, Saturday) at 9:00 a.m. It also marked the beginning of a new friendship for Maxim, who met Emilie Novo Riesing, the daughter of graduate school friends of mine who were visiting from Germany. They are both seven years old. Emilie speaks German and Spanish, but also understands English. Maxim speaks English and little Spanish, but understands Spanish well. They managed quite well. We decided that we would play exchange when they both got to high school in a few years. One year with Emilie here in the United States, and one year with Maxim there in Germany. Maribel is from Galicia, in Spain, and we expect that we will see them next in Spain some summer in the not too distant future. This week was also the beginning of my 43rd year. Coincidentally, Maribel was born precisely one year to the day after me and so it marked the beginning of her 42nd year. Marcela made us a cake and the kids bought me a Red Sox t-shirt and Red Sox "born into it" magnet. We put the kids to bed and then sat up until 1:00 solving the problems of the world and sharing parenting stories and tips. Of course, this left me five hours to sleep before I had t wake up and prepare for the first class. So, also the week of the beginning of not enough sleep. This week we managed to get Noah up onto a bicycle, mostly by giving him one that had belonged to Maxim and custom painting it. So, hopefully, this is the beginning of Noah's learning how to ride a bicycle. He seems to enjoy it so far. With the training wheels all the way up, the bike is very stable, which he liked, except when you turn, which he doesn't. The plan is to gradually raise the training wheels, introducing more and more wobble, and forcing him to stay balanced. Noah did feel left out this week as Maxim spent the day with Emilie and her family and there were no boys for him to play with. Last night he cried a lot about that. Ellen, the youngest, is only three, so Noah couldn't really figure out how to play with her. We are bracing ourselves for an even busier week ahead as classes are now full time for all of us. This will be true until December. So this is the beginning of school, for real. The Novo Reisings left for the beginning of their journey across the American South,this tenth anniversary of their wedding. And so for them, we wish a most delightful second decade of marriage just as it gets under way. More again next week.