Confessions of a Worrywart

As this publishes, I’m about to board a plane with just The Husband! Yup, we're going on vacation and have shipped the kids off to the grandparents. For 10 glorious days they will breathe fresh country air, get tractor rides (or play in the snow, given the forecast....), play with their cousins and generally get spoiled rotten by their grandmother, while The Husband and I are off wandering around aimlessly here and here, doing things that may or may not be on this list and hopefully also taking trips here and here. Who knows, really. We might also just sleep in and take advantage of the daily (daily, yes!) wine tastings offered by our hotel.

This must be what they call bliss. Or something close to it, anyway, especially for us grown-up-vacation-deprived people.

The kids agreed to go on vacation by themselves (Punk 2 likely because Punk 1 was so enthusiastic about it, not because he knew what he was signing up for), and have been quite excited in the weeks leading up to this. They will be well taken care of, I know, so this is not about me feeling guilty for abandoning them for a few days, although I do of course.

It’s about my worries about the state of their German when we return. ‘Cause you know, they won’t hear a word of it where they are going, except for when we call them. As we will. Every day, every other day if we can control ourselves.

So yes. They’ve got 10 days of all English ahead of them.

Is this going to make a difference in how well they remember their German and how willing they are to speak it when we get back together? I’m sure Punk 1 won’t forget, but I’m not sure whether she might not get a bit rusty. Or maybe she will take that as reason enough to once again refuse to speak German, if only for a while, one just never knows what she’ll get up to, stubborn little donkey that she is. She's made it quite clear already that one of the reasons she's excited to go visit Oma & Opa is that while there, she doesn't have to speak German.

And Punk 2 – will he forget? He still speaks German to me most of the time (at least when I keep reminding him), but seems to have been much better at it when Oma was here last summer and he really got going with it. Just having me around for a few hours each day may not be enough to really keep him going, so how will his German fare when he won’t see me at all for 10 days? Is it possible that he’ll he give it up as quickly as he took it up last summer? As the younger sibling, he is so influenced by what Punk 1 does or tells him to do, I can’t help but wonder. Though Oma is comming to the rescue again this summer, hopefully with the same smashing results as last year!

Am I silly to worry about this? Is their German already established well enough so 10 days won’t make a dent? German, after all, is our shared language, the language they’ve both heard from before birth and the language they use to express their emotions and their thoughts to me, the language in which they sing and play with me.

Am I nuts?
If you must, let it all out. There's no need to hold back :)