In Case You're Feeling Green...

...here is an excerpt from an email I sent to a dear friend tonight, revealing a small glimpse at the flip side of our dreamy Irish experience...

"The leaves over at the college have begun to change already too,
and I'm stoked to be here in the fall. It will be beautiful, and a
huge adventure, but before you get too jealous rest assured that it's
not all shamrocks and rainbows - there are a few shadows cast by all this Irish sunshine. (ha ha, Irish sunshine... very funny, Mindy! We've seen the sun maybe three times since being here! :-)) I can tell you all about how I
burned through almost two months' salary in about three weeks setting
up house, fixing passport issues and rigging out the kids for school.
Or how it's so cold, cloudy and rainy that I'm already yearning for
flip flops and an hour or two of unalloyed sunshine. How homework takes us HOURS to complete
every day, with at least one daughter either repeatedly flopping on
the floor or dissolving into tears. Or how my Sophie still persists
in absolutely melting down every time I drop her off for school. It's
nothing new - she did it every day last year until I gave in and
bribed her with candy every day to go willingly. I'd better roll out
the Cadbury train to do the same this year because it's kind of
annoying.

And Maggie's stressed out because in school they deal in cursive (which she hasn't used since the 3rd grade), the metric system, in-class Catholic prayers twice daily, and military time so she sometimes feels totally clueless - a new thing for her. And yesterday teacher chewed her out in front of the
other students because she didn't do a homework assignment. She
was completely mortified and came home and sobbed for an hour. Having
always been a pleaser and one of the top kids in her class, she was
so crushed. She misunderstood the assignment and did the wrong one
and got called out for it. I could think of a better way for her
teacher, who otherwise has been great for her so far, to have dealt
with the situation but it did provide a good opportunity to have the
whole "we fall down so we learn to pick ourselves up" and
"what can we learn from this experience" talk with her. So
yes, if comfort retards growth, I think this will be a banner
semester for Clan Larsen!"