So life here has been racing along. Sue works long hours; Eric and the boys have been busy with school, after school activities, and getting wet in the rain. Moods have gone from high to low for each one of us, and the days when everyone is dipping make no fun for anyone.
However, what has brightenend our mood, along with most of Europe and the world outside of the US, is that it is World Cup time! The Somervilles have been gearing up since May when we bought our Panini sticker books, and started the (apparently) multi generation tradition of spending a few hundred dollars on little packs of stickers in hopes of filling up the book with all 600 or so stickers. There are stickers of the teams, each player, each stadium (takes two stickers to get the whole stadium picture), each team emblem...
It was actually working quite well for disciplining our kids, as we finally had a stick and carrot worthy of changing behavior. How many of you have been at your wits end that nothing you can think of to take away from your kid really does the trick to stop them doing what they are doing: Silly voice for too long? Too loud in the car? Want to have your sticker book taken away? Played nice with your brother? Helped set the table and clean up without needing to be asked? Hey, I think you get to have a packet of stickers...
Well all was going well with the stickers - they would get a pack every other day or so, we would slowly open them and get them in the books - when one day I come home, and every pack of stickers has been opened. "What the heck happened here?" I asked Eric. He had a slight panicked look in his eyes - "They started trading at school - we need to get all of our stickers in our books and know which ones we are missing, or else we will miss out on the trading and end up with none of the cards we need..."
Really?
Well, this started hours of work on spreadsheets with the cards we needed (they are all numbered), spreadsheets with cards we could give away, daily trading in the school cafeteria and multitudes of emails of who had what and who needed it. There was the sad story of the boy (sorry forgot his name) who finally got #172 (I don't remember exactly, just humor me), the last card he needed, and then he lost it - total devastation! There was the dinner we had a Tony's house, where you would think it was the NFL draft or something, with Eric and his (whoops - Karl and Bennett's) cards on one side of the table, and Tony and his (whoops - Josh and Brandon's cards) on his side of the table, with two hours of dealing: "Well, I can give you 422 if you can give me 112 and 565"...
In hindisight, Eric probably timed the trading just right. Both Karl and Bennett are now proud owners of full Panini sticker books to remember the 2010 World Cup and Switzerland with. Now if Switerland can just keep up their winning streak...
