Stuff I learned this week.

Over the past few days, I've learned some pretty interesting things.  Here's a sampling.

1.  Most 7th graders have a vocabulary limited to four words: "huh?", "I dunno", "I forgot", and "So?".  This was confirmed at the 7th grade parent coffee at school on Monday.  The school does a fantastic job of keeping parents connected through various educational offerings (yep, parenting classes if you will), and grade level "coffees" where you get updates on what is going on in academics, any field trips coming up, projects, etc. as well as developmental expectations and happenings in the school as a k-12 community.   We also learned that almost everything your 7th grader had learned in his previous education, for some strange reason it is erased at the beginning of 7th grade.  That explains a lot.
 
2.  Yes, it does get cold in London.  Even for Minnesotans.  For weeks the weather forecast has included terminology that we would use for terrible snowstorms and wicked Minnesota type weather:  "bitter" "frosty" "wintery"...and I've been sortof pooh-poohing all this talk, because honestly, temperatures 5ish Celsius certainly don't seem cold to moi.  However, this week it has indeed become COLD.  There's this wind, and it's biting, and perhaps it's the moisture, but it just really is finally down right cold.  Londoners are bundled up like eskimos, and I've pulled out our puffy winter coats from Minnesota.   And now when they say "bitter" and "particularly cold", this week I give them the permission to say so!

3.  You can get just about anything in Camden.  Tuesday I wanted to get a whole list of random things, so I went to Camden.  You've got the Camden Markets, large supermarkets, the pound store, specialty stores...you name it.  I went to the Post Office, to the Council Office, to a guitar store, a small Whole Foods market, the 99p store...lots of walking but you can hit so many different kinds of stores!

4.  I can run to Hampstead Heath from my front door.  Running in London is great - the weather is mild, there are lots of green spaces and parks, and you can cover a lot of ground on your own two feet.  I've become enamored with Regent's Park and Primrose Hill Park, because they are literally 3 blocks from our house.  I'm a creature of routine, and I like to run on dirt paths if possible, so I'm quite satisfied with my route around Regents on the trails.  But Hampstead Heath is referred to "The Lung of London" - they will even have the National Cross Country Championships up there on February 25th this year.  It's about a 20 minute run to get there, so I need to run longer than usual, but to do an hour loop, it's well worth the extra miles and good for me too!  Maybe I'll extend my run up that way more often.

5.  I truly love not having a car.  Rare is the day that I long for the lifestyle of my suburban mom living in my car driving kids everywhere and schlepping stuff everywhere.  Walking, scootering, biking, public transporting, it's all jolly fun, especially the walking, I think it helps me to keep a good mood!  I've been to Costco here twice, and those two times my heart yearned to push my cart out into the lot and find my old Toyota Sienna there...but alas, not so.  Thank goodness for a great friend who lets me tag along with her once in a while!

6.  It really is a small world.  Yesterday I met up with 3 other moms of elementary children from school and we took our elementary kids (only they had conferences and so had a day off, not the older ones) to a movie and lunch.  I had never met one of the moms and it turns out she is from Eden Prairie, MN (well originally Vancover) and moving back in a few months...we probably used to work out at the same Lifetime Fitness and certainly even have acquaintances in common!

7.  We're missing out on some monumental family moments.  The kids have a new cousin!  But we won't get to see him until he's 6 months old....and there have been quite a few family birthdays...we miss these celebrations.

8.  Perhaps I don't need to freak out if my first grader goes to the principal's office.  I did, okay, overreact.  But.  After all.  It's the principal's office.  There is quite a heavy connotation and imagery that goes along with that phrase.  To his defense, he was going to the aide of his friend, who was screaming for help, in some sort of 7-year-old-boys-wrestling-activity that they do, so Josh went and pushed the kid who was holding his arms... and apparently the class had just had a very clear discussion that pushing, shoving, etc was not to be tolerated and anyone who does such a thing would go to the principal's office.  So, off he went.  Hopefully he got the message.  He's a rough, physical kid, no doubt about it, and he really needs to work on channeling that energy into sports and other positive outlets.  While I pondered the need for therapy or intravenous drugs, Dave calmly reminded me that he, too, had visited the principal's office as a elementary student as did his brother.  They've both turned out okay I guess, so maybe I don't need to worry too much.