Knorr Family Adventures

The first attempt at writing this got deleted off my computer (my fault) so attempting one more time. S ince last time I wrote about Anton many things have happened.   Most importantly, today kindergarten staff is getting the Epi-pen training.   Since January Anton was only allowed to attend kindergarten if the owner was present.    It might not sound complicated until you think about the fact that prior to all of this happening, I have never even seen the owner and they own 2 other places.   That effectively means that owner is not always there.   Most of the time, I have no problems keeping Anton home if needed but a couple of times it has been a bit problematic when I have had other plans.  Also, in the last month we have been to 3 new doctors dealing with his allergies.   First was another pediatrician who explained to us that insurance will only cover so many Epi-pens in one year and in Germany they expire in 6 months, not in 1 year...

Andrei’s school was closed on Monday because it’s Rosenmontag which is technically not an official holiday but as Wikipedia informed me later schools are usually closed on Mondays and in some really Karneval-happy places on Tuesdays as well.   Andrei’s school was open on Tuesday but they had one big party all day long.   Ilya and Anton had their respective parties on Mondays.    The best part about this is that there was a sign on extended day door that they are closed on Monday but not on the school itself!   In German schools there is no separation between school and religion.   In fact, in Germany there is no separation between church and state.   If you belong to a Catholic or Protestant church or a synagogue 8% of your income taxes will automatically be deducted.   That means that if you make 50,000 euros a year, you will pay 10,000 euros in regular taxes and additionally 800 euros to the church.  If you don’t want to pay t...

It’s taking us a year but we finally managed to get Andrei back into ice skating.   He used to love it back in the States and even had a private teacher for a little bit but somehow it hasn’t made our “to do” list in Germany.    Anyway, I have had a really hard time finding a “learn to skate” program.   It seems that most times you pick figure skating, speed skating or hockey.   We choose speed skating because that’s what Andrei seems to love – going in circles as fast as he can (which is not that fast at this point).  There are 2 speed skating clubs in Frankfurt area and we chose one because I found their information online and no other reason than we were able to call them and get some info.   We came on Wednesday at 5 o’clock and Andrei started his class.   The class itself is broken into 2 parts.   First 45 minutes are warm up which essentially means running, stretching and jumping.   Then the kids get on the ice and start d...

When the father is away, the kids have fun ... Ilya and Anton are both sick but at least nobody is in the hospital.  (knock on wood)  This is everything I gave out last night and funny enough it has a combination of American, German and British medicines!  The little black box is to check that Anton's oxygen is staying up. I kept both of them home from school today and they are both passed out on the couch right now.