First Day of School

Though there is not a Staples store within three or four (or more) countries of here, our sentiments were very much with the Staples Most Wonderful Time Commercial today. Call the folks at Guinness (I am thinking the World Record people, not the beer people, but you could call them too), because we have just survived the world's longest summer break. Begun June 5th 2009, this break lasted a record 10,195,200 seconds. (Go ask your 5th grader to figure out how many days that is...a good math project).

We love Baker, Riley and Tae. And as far as we can tell, they love us. But after that much time together, particularly the last 17 days, since our arrival in CR where we knew no other kids with whom the kids could play and where the TV broadcast nothing of interest in english (though they have watched iCarly in Spanish), we were all going a little batty. Perhaps, to be fair, me the most.

After a bumpy ride to school, (see video), Baker and Tae each had a great day. Tae's teachers are Ms. Aidi, Mr. Joey, and Ms. Carolina. Baker has Ms. Paige. (The school's custom is to use teacher's first names with the Mr/Ms. title attached. Baker made a friend even before class started--a Canadian boy who is also new to the school. Tae grabbed Mr. Joey's hand and walked happily off to class.

Riley had a rougher day of it. Unfortunately, her tough day began about five hours before school, at 3 a.m. when she awoke with an earache, which I consider to be the most painful of all common childhood maladies. She had a poor night's sleep and arose early, by shortly after six. She shuffled off with half of her new classmates when 8:15 rolled around. As it turns out, the other half of her classmates have school in just the afternoon this week, while Riley has it in just the morning. Furthermore, the other kids in the morning session are mostly younger because...well too much detail. Suffice it to say they are younger. So, many of the kids who ultimately will become Riley's friends are not yet known to her. Neither Baker nor Tae have this situation.

So, when we picked Riley up after her half day, the poor kid was melted. It was 90+ degrees, her ear hurt, she had not drunk much water, and she was tired. We got her home and Tara managed to get her into her air-conditioned bedroom and down for a nap. She felt much better after that and we took her off to the doctor who prescribed some medicine for her ear, which she said is indeed infected. She was in bed by 7:30 tonight and we are hoping for the best for tomorrow.

In other news, test drove an ATV today, continued looking for housing post-12/15, and learned that I can play soccer on Monday nights in CR...woo-hoo! Tara is doing well, getting excited about a month-long yoga intensive that she plans to take at the Nosara Yoga Institute.

Pura Vida!

PS Riley just woke up as I went to publish this...ear hurts and she has a fever. She'll be home from school tomorrow...