The merits of having grandparents...

So Oscar has finished his first week of school, and so far the teacher has not reported any unruly behaviour, which is good. My Whatsapp account is spammed with pictures of Oscar´s school, his new and old friends, and the like. School is four hours a day in the first semester, which is nearly the same time Oscar has spent in kindergarten each day. This the rascal can manage. One more hour, and he´ll let off the steam at having to spend his precious play time at a place he does not want to be at all. Like my daughter he has decided in advance that attending school is a waste of time. Little Lil went missing the day before her first school day. We had been at a fair, where we met her best friend´s family, and while we were inspecting the booths little Lil and little Emma took their backpacks, one a unicorn, the other one a dinosaur, and wandered off, towards a better future without school. How convenient that little Lil had the little sword (letter opener) and a blowing horn we had bought earlier this day in her backpack. The blowing horn was what made us finally find the two. None will hoot as loud as dearest daughter mine, she has a talent for useless things like this one. Oscar loves his aunt Lil, and she loves him back. Those two are of one mind, much to the regret of the unfortunate parents and grandparents. The tales of little Lil´s adventures told by his father made an impression on little Oscar, though not a beneficial one, I´d say.
Back to basics: Since Oscar´s mum´s work usually starts at 7, she will pick up little Xaver and bring him to toddler group in the hospital. His dad will do homeoffice in the morning then bring Oscar to the school bus, before he drives to the office. This will do number one good, I think, because his self-imposed working time started at six thirty in the morning, with half an hour drive to get to his work place. Now he has more time yet more chores, too, like doing breakfast for his oldest offspring. Normal school days are well provided for now. Yet there´ll be times in school life were the children have a free day while the doting parents have not. Up to now this has not been a problem, because workplace nursery school was open then. School is not, which is good for the young ones but bad for the parents. So next week Oscar and his best buddy since Kindergarten (my heartfelt sympathy to the teacher, because she has both of them in her class, the rascals sitting next to each other, for how long only the mistress knows) will come to us, will sleep in the guestroom and will get picked up by the parents next day afternoon. Huzzah! I will have to stock up on Valium. Those two are a nightmare when together! Hubby is ecstatic, but usually he´s the one panicking first. And then there´s the autumn vacation looming ahead from October 26th to November 2nd. We had an autumn vaccation once about ten years ago. Never again, our politicians decided. Never again lasted for ten years. Families will be ecstatic now that they will have to spend another week at home with their children, in case they still have a free week of vacation time left, with next to no chance to get out of the country. More likely they are in search of grandparents who have retired already and will accomodate their offspring during day. Hubby and I may as well expect the worst, because Daughter-in-law´s mother is supposed to be on vacation, too, in-country, of course, because slowly but steadily states close their borderies again, to keep Corona out, and believe me, we have lots of infected people here. I´m very afraid there´ll be no vacation abroad for any of us, neither this year nor the next one, it´s more likely we´ll be locked up at home once again, to support our own economy. But Mister President has foreseen the extreme dangerousness of such a holiday in our woodland realm, and a proper warning sign has been designed!



And now let´s wait and see how often and how many children will liven up our boring (I love boring!!!) pensioner life!