Kindergarten Meets Noah

I don’t know why I thought that it would be a great idea to put Noah in German Kindergarten. I would be terrified. It is like all my fears in one setting; being expected to interact with people who don’t speak your same language for hours. Noah was excited. I am excited. He is going to learn this language better than any of us. He has a sweet teacher and she seems to be keeping her eye on him, translating for him. He skipped all the way to school, holding my hand. We went inside and put on the house shoes (slippers) and off to play. The first day I only left him there for an hour. When I went to pick him up, he was still happy. He talked all about playing all day. He learned the German word for play-dough. It was a good day. We walked and skipped all the way home, nothing is better than skipping with a 4 year old.


The second day he came racing into my room in the morning afraid that he was going to be late for school, good sign that he is eager to go back. It has been my experience that fear hits on the second or third day, but nothing yet. This time he stayed for 2 hours. He got to play outside because it wasn’t raining. He also got to play in the “ball bath,” which was wonderful for him. It is a tent/ball pit that is in the gym area of the school. He talked and talked about how much fun it was. He may play all day, but I really don’t care. All I care about is that he is playing with little German kids in a little German school.

Frau Sonja told me that Noah is such a nice boy and mature for his age. He is good and plays nice. WHO is she talking about?! I was so worried, but I guess that the lack of communicating with his peers is keeping him from punching them all. Good. I hope that it continues, but for now the teacher thinks he is wonderful. I don’t know how long it will take before he starts playing with, and not next to, the other kids. He was trying to talk to a little boy on the teeter totter. He just kept talking sweeter and sweeter, like he does with Anya, hoping that he would do what he’d wanted. The boy was in the younger class and so I don’t know how much he spoke anyway.

My favorite was when Christian asked Noah if the kids spoke German, he said, “Yes. They speak German. No one speaks Texas!” Here is to hoping my Texas boy learns German!