Knorr Family Adventures

Warning: this post will truly be a saga of Anton and his kindergarten adventures.  Some people might recall that when we moved here I did not realize that we had to look for kindergarten like right away and waited until April or May time frame to start applying.   (By the way when I say kindergarten I am talking about a mix of daycares and   preschools which attend kids from 3 years old to 6.   6 is the magic number to start first grade.)   Anyway, back to our story – I had to have applied to at least 5 or 6 places last year and we got accepted into two.  One that was kind of far away and was only offering half-day spot.   The other place was great – we could see it out of our window, the staff spoke some English and it was a full day spot.   Well, on the day we accepted the spot the place burned down.   Thankfully, it happened overnight and nobody was hurt.   Unfortunately, they choose not to rebuild and we lost that spot. ...

I have to say I absolutely love the opportunities that we have here for us and the kids.    For us - i n one year we have traveled through so many interesting places that sometimes it's hard to believe and for the boys -  we have found ways to get them involved in many new and exciting things right here in Frankfurt. Andrei and Ilya did track and field for about 5 months last spring.  Ilya loved it, Andrei not so much.   Andrei has been playing chess since July and now we are now looking for a new club for him because the current one is not cutting it (just not strong or organized enough).  He is going to his first chess tournament in a couple of weeks.   Ilya is learning Russian, first at Saturday school, and now in his full time school where he also gets to learn how to draw (something he absolutely loves), dance and play on a recorder amongst many other things.   Ilya also goes to a Saturday class called “Applied Arts” wh...

It makes sense that the longer we stay here the more we get integrated into society and start looking for things that we need/want.   One of those things is looking for more medical related services.   Maybe we were just really lucky in Pittsburgh and I have definitely learned to navigate the complicated systems of support services but Germany takes everything to a whole new level. Apparently (from somewhat of a hearsay) for regular visit, a doctor gets paid only 10 euros so that means that they try to push through as many patients as they can and many times it does feel like we are very incredibly rushed but also many times we are in the waiting room for an hour ... I have no logical explanation ... Several examples that kind of drive me up the wall!   At his 3 year check up, Anton failed regular eye test and we went to see a specialist who said that he definitely needs glasses but wanted to refer him to another specialist.   This second specialist said that h...

In the last 2 weeks I met with teachers from Anton’s school and from Ilya’s school for what I am guessing is a semi-annual review.   Both had really good reviews so I’ll start with the youngest. Anton has adjusted really well to kindergarten.   He (usually) goes into the room without any problems barely waving bye to me.   In the last 3 months his German has really increased – he understands what his teachers are saying to him and is starting to say some words back to them.   At this point he still uses a lot of English words but it’s not a problem for them.   He is finally potty-trained!   Anton is very high energy but also plays nice with kids when they play calmer games like pretend kitchen.   Anton absolutely loves puzzles and can spend an hour just working on a puzzle.   As a side note – Chris and Ilya are working on a 1000-piece puzzle together and they left it on the coffee table one night when I told all 3 boys to clean up and Anton i...