first day

Even though Kaspar is only three we decided to put him in Latvian school kindergarten as of this fall. It's only a few hours every Saturday morning and it's a great chance for him to meet and hang out with other Latvian speaking kids his own age. Well.... relatively speaking, I guess. Most of them are a year older. Last Saturday was his first day of school and he took it very seriously. Very seriously! The night before we had to read the "Jekabs & Joakims" story about six times trough from cover to cover (it's an interactive book about an elephant, who goes to school for the very first time...) And the next morning Kaspar was not impressed about the fact that we did not have enough apples to bring for every kid in his class. That's what Joakim does, when he goes to school... he brings a large bag of apples for all his classmates to share. So, Kaspar had a little breakdown on me.

The morning routine and getting ready for school otherwise went relatively smoothly. He even managed to pack his own bag. But once we got to school and he saw the teacher and some of the other kids he became this quiet and shy and frightened three year old... I'm still surprised how the shy stage for kids only begins after they turn two and a half or so. Before the age of two they don't seem to really grasp the "shy" thing. It took a few minutes of holding both Stella and him in my lap, a few friendly kids, who wanted to share a train track with him ... a good ten minutes into the school day he was off on his own, playing and laughing and ordering the other kids around. Yup, he's becoming a little bossy. I blame the "older sibling" status for that. Finally, when he noticed that I was still lingering by the door he came up to me and in a gentle but firm voice said: "Mommy, get lost, please. Don't you see? All the other parents have left." That was enough of a hint for me to take off ad finish signing him up for the class. I knew it was safe of me to pay the non refundable school fees for the year.

I do have to clarify the "get lost" statement... or else I might have emails from grandparents and concerned family members asking me about the language my child uses. First of all, it was said to me in Latvian, of course! And I'll have to blame Disney for the advancement of my three year olds' language skills, especially the rich vocabulary in Latvian slang. There are four or five movies (Shark's tale, Cars, Ice Age) that have been given to Latvian movie studios by Disney and re-done in absolutely fabulous Latvian. We own a few of them and they are some of Kaspar's favourites. He watches them on average three to five times a week. So, the language he's learning from these films is not only full of humour, great lines but also rich in slang, of course. Just the way some kids pick up lines from movies in English, my child has developed a very advanced Latvian sang vocabulary and uses movie jokes to make people laugh. He's in his "I'm a parrot" stage. It'll pass... I'm sure.