Knorr Family Adventures

This would be Anton's :)

This is a story about my middle child. I write a lot more about Anton and Andrei who both have had more challenges so I figured I'll make up for it now :) Ilya has always been a bit of an interesting child and he and I are spend a week together while Anton was in kindergarten and Andrei at his school camp over the winter break.    Sometimes Ilya doesn’t get as much one on one time as the other ones who have more issues (medical and otherwise). Ilya seems to think that he wants to spend time by himself, but he is really awful at that.   At the very least, he wants me to be in the same room as he is playing in if not actively playing with him.   Yet, when his brothers come home he wants them not to bother his games but still be together ... if that makes sense.   He loves to build Lego and he is very good at it; he loves to build elaborate tracks where he combines wooden track with magnetic tiles to make bridges, stations, etc.   He loves fashion ...

Continuation of Anton’s kindergarten saga … After Anton got kicked out on Friday after Christmas party, my friend and I spend quite a lot of time calling different people hoping to sort it out as some kind of misunderstanding.    They did not break and held on to their position that they cannot care for Anton and moreover, the owner of the place called Anton a problem child who needs specialized kindergarten. Somewhat furious at this point because we already had him looked at by various professionals who all say to give Anton time and he will talk without needing any special interventions outside of speech therapy.   I called out local village person in charge of kindergartens trying to explain a situation but her response was that 1) we have a spot and 2) there are no other kindergartens at this point with spaces available.   I should mention that under German law all kids above 3 years old should have a spot in kindergarten if their parents choose to go t...

My experience with German so far has been quite an interesting journey.   When we originally talked about moving to Germany in June of 2014, I really quickly realized that because of our timing I did not have time to take any kind of German class in Pittsburgh.    Thus, I arrived in Germany having ZERO experience to the point where I didn’t even know how to pronounce certain letters of the alphabet.   We arrived in the last week of October (a little over a year ago) and with trying to get things settled (school, house, etc.) my German classes didn’t start until January.   I am really happy   that as part of Chris’ contract we both got private classes.   My original teacher was about as German as you get and I think she did a great job teaching me basic of German but she also had some little nuances that weren’t ideal for me.   For example, she had a heavy Hessian accent (area where we live) – it’s kind of like learning English with Pittsburgh...

Anton's saga is not over but is taking a little break since his kindergarten is closed for winter holidays.  I will post an update later once we have some answers.   For winter vacation we decided to head to London because we found very reasonable airplane tickets using RyanAir (discount airline) and then we found a very reasonably priced apartment in the central London. We loved London - it was expensive but has so much stuff to see and do.  In most places we visit we try to make things fun for both kids and us alike.  That usually means that while our itinerary is sight-seeing in the overall nature, there are some side trips that might include things like playgrounds.  We left Frankfurt really early - our flight out was at 6am, but that also means we arrived in London and still had a day to settle in and start seeing things.  However, it was a very long day. Our apartment was a 2 bedroom place and it definitely had enough room for everybody to feel pr...