The kids started school today.  Rough morning.  Abby had an accident in bed and had to be cleaned up this morning.  Jakob was still tired and sounding like he's got a cold.  And it was the first day of school in Hungary.

Originally we had planned on having nearly a month of Hungarian lessons for the kids and I before starting them in school.  Now that wouldn't have made them fluent, but it would certainly have made them more ready to be with Hungarians speaking Hungarian and having a base level awareness of what is going on.  Again, as I'm coming to expect, Rachel's company dropped the ball.  Really it's the Cartus and ARC people that flubbed this as they are in charge of the relocation.

Regardless of who's at fault, we managed to get through the first two weeks in Hungary at a luxury spa/hotel in the Matra hills with only the daily pimsleur Hungarian lessons that I had on my iPad and practicing on the staff at the hotel.  The staff seemed to like it and were very helpful, but having your 7 and 5 year old (nearly 8 and 6) being able to order beer and wine is not as helpful as having them able to ask where the bathroom is.  Live and learn.  Rachel keeps reminding me that she is the only American in Europe for her company so that must be a good thing right?

When we took Jakob to his classroom, he was approached by the other kids.  They seemed very friendly to him.  They showed him where to put his jacket and his book bag.  His teacher showed up a few minutes after we got there and immediately sat with him and began trying to reassure him.  Honestly, he looked ok.  I wish someone would have been reassuring me.

When Jakob started preschool in Memphis, I had a really hard time letting him go.  He didn't have any problem at all.  He walked in the room and headed over to the train to get it out and start playing with it.

That evening I was talking to Rachel about it.  I complained about how bad it felt when he didn't even turn around.  I opined about how it was going to be worse when Abby went to school.  Jakob crawled up in my lap and said, "Don't worry Daddy, we'll get you a babysitter.  She'll keep you company.". At the time I thought this might be a good idea as the kids' sitter was a twenty year old gymnast/cheerleader with a big smile and blond hair.

Abby started out thinking I should hang around longer, but decided that I could go when Candy, the English speaking teacher, showed up.  Somehow I was less worried about Abby.  She seems pretty excited about the whole thing and her school is taught in English as well as Hungarian.  She'll probably know what's going on better than some of the Hungarian kids as this will be her third school in such a short period of time.

We'll see what the kids look like at pick up time.  Wish me luck.