The First 48...72...Whatever!

Oh.  My.  God.  I am exhausted.  What a rush this past 3 1/2 days has been since meeting Astrid and bringing her home.  Astrid is our 5th student and every single one prior to this has been very shy and kept to themselves a lot for the first weeks of their exchange.  I've watched with awe and admiration other families and students who instantly bonded and everything went great from the get-go, and I've enjoyed watching our relationships with our students bloom more slowly and watched those kids come out of their shells and really blossom.  But this year was the year that we got the kid who showed up, made herself at home, and was ready for action.  And it is a crazy different experience!

So Friday rolled around, and it was arrivals day and pretty much everything went wrong.  I had been helping coordinate the arrivals and arranged for the arrivals to happen at our church here in Fredericksburg.  Leah and I both woke up sick as dogs.  We had sniffles, coughs, Leah had a low grade fever, we just felt all out of whack.  I went over to the church at 8am to unlock the classrooms and set up the tables and whatnot that we needed, and then decided we'd go get some medicine. I started driving into town and discovered my wallet was not in my car.  I turned around and went home, and couldn't find it anywhere.  I was ripping through the house, freaking out, thinking "This is what happens when I clean!" but I had things to do at the same time!  So I go over to Sugar Shack and pick up the donuts that they donated to the AFS'ers, get a text from Alex at AFS that the kids are heading for the church, run back to the church and open up, and Leah and I hide out in the kitchen because I had the impression we weren't supposed to see Astrid, plus I was now stressed, hair flying, not in nice clothes, it was a scene.  We see a caravan of vehicles drive up, and Alex comes in, we sneak out to greet her, the kids start filing in with their bags, and Alex points to Astrid's back and tells Leah, "That's her!"  So Leah just stands there, and as Astrid comes back around the corner from dropping off her bag, she spies Leah, comes running over, sits on the floor, grabs Leah into a hug, and the two of them sit there.  Leah is totally and completely star struck, Alex and I were weepy, and then Dipthi, our welcome student comes forward and we get to hug her and say hello to her too, while the other students are standing around asking Astrid, "Is this your host sister?" It was so sweet!

Eventually the grown ups prevail and send the students back for orientation, and I make sure everything is in order and go back home to find my wallet, with the assurance I will be back at 11 to pick up another volunteer and run to Wegmans to get lunch.  I go home and my wallet is still nowhere to be found, and I get a call from Alex that a woman has come to the church and freaked out because I am not there and they don't know who the contact person is and who's using the building and what is going on.  So I drive back over and attempt to diffuse the situation and am told in no uncertain terms that I am NOT to leave the building with all these people here.  So I give Alex back her credit card and the Wegmans gift card that they've generously given us and she goes off to get lunch while I figure out how I'm going to find my wallet, take a shower, get Astrid and Dipthi's welcome gifts, buy groceries, and finish cleaning the house.  Determination:  I am not.

Alex returns with lunch, and Leah and Astrid immediately become inseparable, so she has lunch with the teens while I have lunch with the other volunteers.  Wegmans Catering was awesome and we had a ton of food leftover so everyone got to bring some home.  As we were eating, two members of the religious education committee came in to do some work.  The RE committee was the sponsoring committee that allowed AFS to use the building at the UU for free.  So consequently, I asked them if they would mind keeping an eye on things while I ran home for a while?  They happily said yes, it was no problem, so at 1:30, I left the building, drove home, vacuumed, took a quick shower, put clean sheets on Dipthi's bed, finished decorating Astrid's room, did another sweep for my wallet (still didn't find it), grabbed the welcome animals, and arrived back at the UU at 2:00.

An hour later, two friends each showed up with some cash, as I hadn't managed to do the grocery shopping as my bank card was long gone with my wallet, and I was so grateful and stressed out and happy and exhausted I nearly burst into tears.  Around 4:30, the 'ceremony' to welcome the students to Virginia began--they each have to draw their own country's flag and then they stand in front of the church and two of the students are chosen to say a few words on behalf of all the students.  Astrid was one of those two, along with a girl from Argentina!

Then Nancy said, "Students, find your families!" and Astrid and Dipthi came forward.  Several families were late due to our infamous VA traffic, so by the time the families and kids were matched, we broke down the furniture and cleaned up the church to what I thought would be the satisfaction of all involved, divvied up all the leftovers, and got everyone out, it was nearly 6pm.  Then there was the matter of how to get four people, four suitcases, two backpacks, and a ton of food into the car for the ride home.  Dipthi drew the short straw and wound up sitting practically on Leah's lap, surrounded by suitcases, but as I only live 5 minutes from the church, we survived the journey with little fanfare.

When we got in, we had to unload then entire car before Dipthi could get out and then we decided to show the girls their rooms before dragging their suitcases upstairs.  Dipthi camped out overnight in the Pink Palace (aka Leah's room) and Astrid was in her own room.  She said when she walked in, "I'm not the kind of person who cries from joy, but if I was, I'd be crying right now!"  Leah had made her the letters to spell out her name, I'd made her the little welcome banner, we had put a few things in a little welcome basket, and the place felt nice and homey and bright and cheery.  The green paint has now served us well--I painted it green when it was Leah's nursery, then it turned out Ine's favorite color was green, so I left it alone, and now it turns out Astrid's favorite color is green, so I have yet to be forced to repaint it.  (Note to AFS: Can we add this question to the student application, so I can only choose students who love green from here on out?)  It was very sweet that Astrid was so happy in her new space, and so I felt very teary and excused myself.  We hauled the kids' bags upstairs and then the fun began as they both were feeling quite energetic (Dipthi had been in the US most of the week for orientations) and they wanted to go with me when I said I needed to go to Walmart and finally get some medicine for me and Leah.

What a riot!  Astrid loves doing DIY cosmetics and immediately went searching for the Vaseline to make lip balm.  She found a giant tub of it for $2 and sat down on the floor, cradling it in her arms and saying, "Why aren't you people excited?  Get excited! I feel like a freak!"  Haha  Apparently in Denmark, a travel sized Vaseline is quite expensive, like $6, so the fact she could get a giant one for half that size was impressive.  Dipthi said that many people she knows also use Vaseline, so it's quite an impressive product.  They loved wandering the Walmart aisles, and then we came to the school supplies section, where Astrid lost her cool for the second time when she spotted the Elmer's Glue.  In her DIY searchings on youTube, she has come across videos on how to make slime using Elmer's Glue and Borax, and she has been DYING to try it, but there's no white glue in Denmark.  Next thing I know, we are buying Elmer's Glue and she and Leah are plotting exactly what kinds of glitter slime they are going to make.  Leah's adoration was only growing by the moment, incidentally.

So we buy all of our things and return home, both girls help chop up some of the veggies from AFS and I heat up the food from Olive Garden that they had given us, and we all sit down and eat our first meal together.  Ordinarily, I order pizza on the students' first nights, but we had all this bounty and I was thrilled to have a real meal together.  It was getting quite late at that point, so I put Leah to bed, and told both girls they should just relax and enjoy themselves.  They got the WiFi password and Dipthi was asleep in probably less than an hour.  I went and sat downstairs with my iPad--my feet were KILLING me--and I thought "Isn't this nice?" when Astrid came downstairs and proceeded to talk with me for another couple of hours.  I thought she'd have been exhausted, but she was so happy and excited to be here, and I was so happy and excited she was here that we passed a really lovely evening chatting.  She said she couldn't believe that she was here and she'd be living in our house and everything and that she thought she'd eventually like to call me "Mom" but she didn't feel quite comfortable yet, but was that ok?  I said sure, I would like that.  She held out 2 days before calling me Mom for herself, and now does about 90% of the time, which not a single one of the previous 4 students has ever called me (although Penny does now once in a while).  It's a very nice feeling  <3

The next morning, Leah was ready for action, apparently.  We were both still feeling unwell and we woke up around 4:30 to take medicine and try to get ourselves back to sleep.  I eventually did fall back to sleep, but when I woke up at 7AM and looked over, there were Leah, Astrid, and Dipthi hanging out on my bedroom floor with blankets, a lantern, and the iPad watching movies and having a dandy time!  I got up and made them some cinnamon rolls for breakfast (in Denmark, they are called 'cinnamon snails' which I love!) and Leah brought up a couple of board games for us to all play.  Dipthi's host family was arriving between 9 and 10, so we got her stuff brought back downstairs and they arrived promptly.  Dipthi gave us some really delicious South African treats and she gave Leah a pair of sunglasses that are too cool for school.  We hugged her goodbye and since she will be going to school in town and is the AFS student closest to us, we know we will see her again.  She is an absolute sweetheart, I'm glad we even got one night with her, although I was looking forward to a couple of days! :)

Once Dipthi left, Astrid asked what we would be doing next.  So I put her and Leah in the car and we drive around town so Astrid could see all the sights.  We took her to our pool, Leah's school, her school, my mom's house, the university, Old Town, just a quick driving tour, but it was nice.  She taught us the Danish road game "Yellow Car", being every time you see a yellow car you have to hit everyone else in the car as quickly as possible.  She noted that there are quite a few more yellow cars in the US than there are in Denmark and we were all a bit sore as Leah played with great enthusiasm.

We stopped in at Wegman's and did some more serious grocery shopping to get us through a few days.  Then we headed home for lunch, and making slime, plus and a trip to the pool for the rest of the afternoon.  I have to admit that making slime was a whole lot of fun.  Astrid and Leah made a serious study of all the glitter we had in the craft studio and finally selected purple and blue as their slime colors of choice.  We mixed up the Borax and glue and voila!  Slime!  The girls divided it in half between themselves and Astrid continued adding Borax till she was able to make the slime into a bouncy ball type thing.  Leah enjoyed dripping it off the table, blowing bubbles into it, mashing it into her hands, and more!  They really had a good time.

At the pool, we all had fun playing in the water and splashing around, and Astrid tried to teach Leah how to do the crawl, but was unsuccessful as Leah prefers 'doing' to actual learning.Astrid also gave us some gifts--a beautiful book of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales for Leah and a vase for me, which although her family could not have known, perfectly matches my good china!  I immediately put it away so that neither cats nor small children could get their hands on it and destroy it.

After dinner of make your own pizzas accompanied by family movie night (we watched the new version of Annie), I got Leah put to bed, and Astrid and I sat down with the host family questionnaire.  I was fully prepared to assign her my standard exchange student chores--do your own laundry, change your sheets, make your own school lunch, and help with the dishes--when Astrid said she and her mom had been talking about what she could do to be helpful around the house and please wouldn't I assign her another chore?  I was totally dumbfounded and couldn't really think straight--all the students we've had have been quite helpful but this was a whole new ballgame.  I could tell her to do anything, but I couldn't think of a single thing.  She finally asked me if she could vacuum the whole house once a week, which seems a fair chore to me, so that's what we agreed upon.  The questionnaire is 6 pages long and took us over 2 hours to complete, so we went to bed afterwards.

Yesterday, we were so tired, I slept in till nearly 8am.  Astrid slept till almost 10.  We decided as a family to skip church, and spent a comfortably lazy day.  Leah turned into some kind of fitness guru and she and Astrid started an intense morning workout routine which ended with them doing something Leah calls "Wall Standing."

This was after several thousand laps running around the living room, crunches, push ups, jumping jacks, and more.
Astrid has 3 foodstuffs that define the USA for her: KoolAid, Jello, and beef jerky.  We had gotten some Jello, so we made that in the morning so she could try it.

Ultimately she was not terribly impressed with it.  After lunch, she decided she should finally unpack, and asked Leah if she'd like to help.  Of course Leah was practically in her suitcase!  Then Leah started running up and down the stairs carrying items and messages back and forth between us, even though Astrid and I couldn't think of much to say to one another.  Leah had a blast though. 

At 4pm, my little pal John Adams arrived as I was due to babysit him for the evening while his parents went to the movies.  He was not too impressed with the newbie, he still much prefers his Leelah.  We had dinner--I made shepherd's pie--and Bup (as he is known) refused to eat anything but raw carrots.  Astrid decided it was her mission in life to convince this kid to take one bite of shepherd's pie and to her credit she did convince him to do it after about 20 minutes.  He immediately spit it out.  But he was later allowed to go for ice cream, happily.

We had fun in the evening playing CandyLand, having a water balloon fight, and building Lego robots (did you know Legos are from Denmark?  I didn't!!  But I do now!) before going to Carl's Ice Cream at the last minute for a frozen treat before Bup went home.  Leah and Astrid went to brush their teeth, and apparently they hatched a scheme wherein Astrid removed Leah's loose tooth!!!  Leah was so darned proud.  I had to drive down to the convenience store to get a tooth fairy surprise.  When I got home, I went upstairs to discover that Astrid had snuck into Leah's room and was reading her to sleep.  So sweet!

This morning, I woke up and took Leah down to the DMV so I could get a replacement driver's license as my wallet still has not turned up.  When we got back, Astrid was up, and we all loaded up and went over to Stafford Junction, a local after-school program where I volunteer.  Astrid was a HUGE help with the library project--we got literally hundreds of books sorted and shelved in less than two hours.  She said she really enjoyed doing some volunteer work, and I said it helped me remember that when times seem tough, there is always something I can do to be helpful.  She agreed.  It was awesome to work together like that.  Afterwards, I rewarded her hard work with a trip to Target.  She and Leah dove into the cosmetics section while I sat in Starbucks and read People magazine.  They emerged for frappucinos just as I was learning about the continuing quest for justice for JonBenet, and they were armed with mascara and Elmer's Glue...  They sweet talked me into frappucinos for themselves, Astrid taught Leah how to put on mascara, and then we went home to do something about Leah's hair.

I'd taken Leah to get her hair looked at on Thursday, and the ladies who did look at it gave me some suggestions, but the summer has not been kind to her hair and so we decided ultimately that we were going to cut it.  After dinner (BBQ chicken which Astrid LOVED the sauce and corn on the cob), we did the deed and Leah was NOT happy about it.  She hated the noise of the clippers and she was screaming and crying till I finally told her if she'd knock it off and let me do it, I'd take her to Chuck E. Cheese's and to Walmart to get some fancy headbands.  She wound up loving her new short hair, and her new hair bling, and Astrid asked if we could go to Dollar Tree while we were there, so we did.  Leah got lip gloss and press on nails, and Astrid said she didn't think we Americans knew how lucky we were to have so much stuff at our disposal!  Probably not, but we also probably have way too much of it!  On the way through checkout, I spied PopRocks, and so we grabbed a pack of those and ate them in the car, to lots of giggling.

We got to Chuck E Cheese's at 8;30, only to discover they close at 9:00, so we didn't have a lot of time, but Leah was exhausted anyway, so it was for the best.  The girls played a few games and we came home and put Leah to bed.  Astrid said she was tired and going to bed as well, but a huge clap of thunder freaked her out a bit.  It's all quiet upstairs, and I'm about ready to turn in myself, but I didn't want another busy day to go by without getting this blog udpated.

So that's what we've been doing.  It's been a great start to our exchange.  Astrid is very social and talkative and outgoing, and that has been a major change in our family.  Leah is used to being the talker and I'm used to being the listener, so while nothing has changed for me, Leah now has to fight for airtime.  There have been a few little sisterly squabbles and tears (on Leah's part) as she navigates the frustration of having a big sister again, but I'd say for the most part, everything has been going very well.  I'm so glad I decided to host this year and that we stumbled upon Astrid's application.  I think it's going to be an awesome year!