Ben: POKE'MON GO.

Pokemon got to catch them all. Hello guess what I got Pokemon go. I am very good. 
better than Ethan. My highest Pokemon is a grumping. It is very good.
no jultian.

Making a Home: One Month in Padova

Dave posted a while back that we had a routine down and that he was comfortable in Padova. While I agree that everything was going well, it has really taken me longer to feel like we have a home here.

This first month has been spent just getting oriented. Where do we get food? How do we get around? What do we need to purchase to live here comfortably? Can we run the dishwasher and the washing machine at the same time? (No, as it turns out.)

We aren't totally there yet. I still have to get the grocery loyalty card, which will be one step towards minimizing our expenditures. We will see which of the community of people (there are quite a few) who have reached out to help us will become authentic friends. We have to do some sightseeing, including having the boys visit Dave's building, which has parts of it that are original to around the year 1200.

We had no interest in any day or weekend trips up to this point, but now that we have a home base, we are venturing to Venice tomorrow for the night. You'll see more about that sooner rather than later, I hope. I have a bunch of posts that are drafted in some form, but tonight I'll add some expectations I had coming into this, and what reality looks like after a month.

The Boys
   Expectation: They would struggle during the first two weeks of school, and we would see some
   unhappiness.
   Reality: The boys have been out-of-whack, but not unhappy, this entire month.

From teaching experience, I know that the first two weeks as a language newcomer can be especially rough. Some of my younger students have been in tears for that whole period of time. I was not confident that we would avoid tears. Ben has been anxious about going to school in Italy from the get-go. He always has a tough exterior, but there is a lot going on inside. I imagined that he might break down at pickup or before school. Ethan is really dramatic, so he was a wild card.
I've really appreciated that we haven't had unhappiness. Neither of them was thrilled that we were leaving them the first morning, but after reminding them that school only lasted 5.5 hours, they were ok. There were a few mornings that they didn't want to get up or leave the apartment, but that happens in Michigan.
What has TOTALLY thrown me is their behavior at home after school. They are wild animals. Their behavior is almost feral at times, and it has made me crazy. Spending time in a new environment, pretty much silent the whole time, they have so much to release at the end of the day, and they do it at home. This looks like physically playing with and fighting with each other, climbing the furniture, completely ignoring me... it demands all of my attention. Even to the point that I can't step away to make dinner. I'm glad that Italy is known for their wine.

Writing

Many, many people have asked me, "What are you going to be doing in Italy?" These few months will pretty much be the first time since I was about fourteen that I haven't been working or in school*. Dave will go to work at the University of Padova, the boys will go to la scuola pubblica (Italian public school), and I will... what?

To me, that's a simple question to answer. We will be relying on public transit, so getting the boys to and from school will itself take some time. I'll do laundry, purchase groceries, maybe prepare some food for dinner- many things that go with a quiet, domestic life. It will be a nice change for me, especially because I know that it's temporary.

Now and again, I hope to find myself in the bar with a coffee doing some writing. So far, I've been recording our travels, but once we are settled my hope is to write more by topic. I have some exciting ones in mind so far: Laundry, cooking, language. 😉 I'm not sure how much quality there will be here, but I do know that you get better at writing by writing. By about March, hopefully there will be some improvement.

I may still end up doing some work or school while I'm here. If we are short on funds, I'll explore online teaching and/or grading. I have also been thinking about another graduate degree or NBPTS certification (a national teaching certificate) for a while. The much bigger part of me wants to just enjoy and soak up life.


*Now that I think about it, I did have maternity leaves. Do they count? Those felt a lot like work. There were several summers when the boys were younger that I didn't work, either. But I was with them...