Tristan came down with a fever and swollen glands Saturday. I am guessing that he and Avery had glandular fever (mono). It is much milder in younger kids and most cases not diagnosed because it may be mistaken as the flu. However, they do not have any flu symptoms. They both just had fever and swollen glands in their neck. This scared me because they complained that their neck hurt and wouldn't move it which is a symptom of meningitis but since it went away with Advil and so did the fever I didn't need to worry says the doctor over the phone. I really have no faith in these NHS doctors I have seen. I may start paying to take them to the private hospital. When Avery needed antibiotics they let him suffer and so I had to get a doctor in France and this time they gave him antibiotics without any test to see if there actually was an infection. They were so busy we had to wait for an hour and then they rushed us in and out in less than five minutes. Tristan didn't act very sick the last day or two so I was happy when his fever was completely gone this morning and I sent him to school. He cried and had a fit because he didn't want to go to school but I didn't want him bugging me all day. When he gets bored he can be really annoying. Avery is happy and entertains himself. Tristan starts whining and begging to go to the store and buy a new toy. Once he realized he was going to school he reminded me that he wants to make a periscope for his homework this week and they are to dress up as a book character Thursday for world book day. He thinks he doesn't like school, but he really does. He says he loves literacy class. I think we Americans just call it English. Tristan and Avery are both improving and their teachers are working hard to get them up to grade level. Standards and testing are different here so part of it is just adjusting to different methods but they are also more advanced at an earlier age here in reading and writing. America wastes too much time on silly things like colors and shapes and such that kids pick up kind of automatically, we need to teach them to read earlier. They are certainly capable. Writing here is more like I remember as a kid. We used to write about everything. Tests are also handwritten here. It's old school traditional learning here and it's good. It may take longer to grade but it gives you a better understanding as to where the child is at in their learning. Bubble sheets are no good and much to easy to just guess, especially for little boys that always take the easy way out, even if they know the answer. However, it's not boring in class here because the kids really enjoy school more here. The teachers are more engaging. My boys are fortunate they also have lots of teaching assistants here to help them when they don't understand or to just keep them on task. I don't think they have those at the senior school but they do have smaller classes. Tristan is in for a big change next year. He will have to work more independently. I am nervous for him but all the kids are transitioning that year so hopefully it will go smoothly. I also hope he makes friends. He has struggled with that this year. The neighbor kid is his only friend and he has issues. I told him to play with Avery but he is not interested. I don't feel too bad for him though because he is being picky. There is a nice boy from church in the year before him that he could play with but Tristan says he doesn't want to play the same things. He wants to be friends with the boys in his class that he thinks are cool but they play football all the time and Tristan claims one of them said they don't need any new friends. Tristan tends to have better social skills than my other kids but I guess even he needs some teaching in that area. He tends to think of himself and then come off annoying to others. He has a good friend at church that he has playdates with sometimes. He asks to go to the neighbor's house but he is just curious and wants to play in their house with their things, he doesn't seem interested in the boys that live there. We don't see them much because they go to school six days a week. Avery is doing so much better socially. His teacher says there have not been any issues in a while and he seems happy. Avery is usually happy if you just let him do his thing. I think he is learning how things work here and the other kids are learning how he works. He says he doesn't like going to swimming every Wednesday but afterwards he says he had fun. At his school, they all go for swimming lessons every Wednesday except year 5 and 6. So this year and next Avery will have to go to a weekly lesson. If they don't participate they still have to go to the pool and just sit and watch and read a book or something so he might as well swim. Besides he really needs to learn to swim. Maybe they will be able to teach him. I have the feeling he mostly holds onto a noodle or kick board right now. Avery is also enjoying reading more. None of my kids are bookworms, they would rather run around and play but the younger boys have really improved and don't complain when you make them sit down to read. The books Avery brings home to read are so much more interesting than the lame readers he had been bringing home in the US which seemed to focus so much on trying to have similar phonics in each book that it made the story really dumb.
Ahh! It's sunny today. Flowers are blooming. Birds are singing. It's not cold but if it were a bit warmer it would be perfect. Maybe it will be warmer in Germany on our Easter trip.
