Mid April S
reached her much awaited milestone – the falling of her first tooth. She’d been
waiting for months since many of her classmates had already lost their first
teeth. The combination of being grown up with her first tooth falling off
together with the promise of the tooth fairy was too much to resist. The tooth
was loose for about 2 weeks and she proudly showed her loose tooth to us, her
friends and Ajja/Ajji over skype. One day it finally became very loose. I would
have just waited for it to fall off but the hubby and her together managed to
pull off the tooth. S was very brave – she wasn’t squearmish at all about
puuling off her tooth (she did her herself) and didn’t mind the blood either.
That night
the tooth fairy visited with 10 euros (since we were off for Bellagio the next
day), and a handwritten note shaped like a tooth. This is all the hubby’s
creativity i must admit. S was super excited with the handwritten note and the
money and the note has found its way to her precious jewellery box where all
`precious’ things are stored. S was very choosy on what she wanted to buy with
her money and we went around quite a few shops in and around Bellagio. On the
last day she finally chose a pair of earrings . A was quite upset that S got
earrings and she didn’t and is now eagerly waiting for her tooth to fall as
well.
And in
milestones of a different sort we did our first trek in Switzerland with the
girls last weekend. We have been wanting to go for ages but A has never been
willing to walk for more than 5 mins and neither of us can carry her for an
extended period of time. So its mostly been on flat roads with a stroller (when
she was young) and more recently no treks at all. After much googling and mommy
blogs searching and waiting for a sunny
Sunday (which turned out to be the main stumbling block) we finalised on the
Klangweg which is a 3 km trek with musical instruments every 300m or so for the
children to bang on (incentivises them to continue on the trek). Someone
recommended that the children could scooter on this trek so we carried the
scooters along.
The trek
starts at Alt St. Johann (about a 11/2 hours car drive from Zurich). We have to
take a cable car to reach Selamatt where the Klangweg trek starts. The cable
car itself was pretty exciting as we chose to sit on a open cable seat with
just a rod protecting us and our feet dangling over the side. I kept insisting
that S hold me tightly and the hubby hold A tightly throughout. The scooters
followed us in their own closed cable car J. The first 11/2 km of the Klanweg
was on smooth road and the children were easily able to scooter on it. There
were some very interesting musical instruments which were built in an easy to
play way. The first set was a seesaw which was built around a xylophone and when
the seesaw went up and down a ball would roll from one side to the other over
the xylophone and make lovely music. Highly exciting for the girls to keep
seesawing and making music. A few 100 meters down we came upon the pipes which
could be turned upside down and a series of small rings would come down and
make a clanging noise. There was even a smaller one which the girls could turn
on their own. The next one has steel pipes carved into the trees and you could
bang tennis balls at various heights and hear the noises which would be made.
After this the Klangerweg pointed in the direction of a pebbly path and there
was a smooth road which seemed to connect at a later point to the Klangerweg so
since the girls had scooters we decided to take the smooth road. Somehow we
missed the intersection with the Klanweg later and ended up on the smooth road
for quite a while before realising we
probably had overshot Ilthios which we were where we were planning to break for
lunch. This was confirmed when we saw a sign for Ilthios in the opposite
direction. We had to then trek up a steep hill (the hubby and I carrying the
scooters and the girls being surprisingly ok with the tricky climb and after
much huffing and puffing we reach Ilthios which has a lovely restaurant with a
stunning view.
Lovely because there was tons of stuff for the girls to do there
– there was a rock climbing frame, bouncy castle (a bit dangerous as there was
no rope around it and some of the kids kept bouncing off), rope walking in
addition to the usual slides and swings. The food was surprisingly good for a
change, quite different from the usual
spaghetti/rosti fare. The hubby had two helpings of burgers and I had two
helpings of the vegetable cutlets which taste like the cutlets at home. Yummy.
To top it all there was the stunning backgroung of snowtopped mountains and
open fields. Could go back there just for the lunch.
After a
heavy lunch we decided to walk to the next cable station and continue on the
Klangweg, but the Klangweg got more and more pebbly and diverged significantly
from the smooth road which seemed to go in the correct direction and where all
the others were going, so we decided after 20 mins of trekking to go back to
Ilthios and start our journey home. Which was not that straightforward i might
add. We took the furnicular down from Ilthios to Unterwasser – we were the only
ones on that train and it was strange without even a driver and a bit spooky i
might add. We then walked to the main bus stop to take the bus back to the
place the car was parked. We were so comfortable sitting in the airconditioned
bus (it was hot outside!) that we ended up overshooting oiur bus stop and when
we finally got off we had to take the bus in the opposite direction to reach
our car park. The girls and I had a long nap in the car while the poor hubby
played some heavy metal music to keep himself awake for the long drive back.
All in all great fun, cant wait to do another trek soon.
Addendum :We did another trek with the girls in June and that was fun as well! More about that later...
