Now THIS is fun!

We have been reading Little T this book called “Der Ernst des Lebens” – translated into “The Seriousness of Life”.  It is about a girl who is approaching her 6^th birthday and the start of school and is warned by her mother, father and sister that once she starts school, life will become serious.  As her sister put it, she doesn’t know how easy she has it in her “baby kindergarten”.  The poor girl is rather frightened by this “Ernst” and you can imagine how she must have felt to be assigned to sit beside a boy on her first day of school named “Ernst”. 

But it turns out that this Ernst is rather kind – he shares his pencil crayons and bag of candies with the girl and walks her home from school.  I wish there were boys like him in my grade one class.  The boys I knew just wanted to tease me or pull my hair and years later pull my bra strap and laugh hysterically as it went SNAP.

I’m not sure if Little T is imitating the book, but lately he’s been complaining about having to go to “baby kindergarten” as it is soooo borrrrring, there is nothing to do there, Mommy.  Every day he asks how many sleeps until he starts school.  As his kindergarten class includes other 3, 4, 5 and 6 year olds, I can understand his desire to move on now that he has reached the top level of age. 

Lucky for him, I learned today after finally taking the time to read through the gazillion forms sent home from Kindergarten that he can only attend Kindergarten until July 3rd.  Apparently, he is entitled to 6 weeks of vacation before starting school.  Not sure how I’m going to manage to work and keep him entertained during that time, but luckily we have some visitors coming for the first 3 weeks of July that will keep us all pleasantly distracted!  And, Little T is also getting some homework to do over his vacation from his new teacher so that should keep him busy.  Since German is his second language, she is concerned that he might be behind the others and wants to help him prepare for the start of school.  Summer school and he hasn’t even started school yet. Poor kid.

Growing up, I was just like Little T in the sense that I couldn’t wait to get older to do more and more things.  Now of course, Kindergarten looks very attractive.  I wish I could somehow explain to Little T that he should just enjoy these last few weeks as much as possible as life will become a lot more serious once school starts (still not sure how I’m going to wake up early enough to get him fed and out the door for an 8am school start!). 

On the other hand, does life really get so serious?  Sure, as we grow older the responsibility and obligations also grow. But, do we give up having fun? Not at all!  Everyone should have something in their life to look forward to each day that is fun. And that of course can mean completely different things to us all – whether it’s reading, gardening, golfing, exercising, horseback riding or sailing – as long as it is fun, that’s all that matters.  

His Kindergarten days may be numbered, but I’m excited for Little T as his first day of school approaches.  As long as he still wants to come down for “just one more kiss and hug” and begs me to carry him back to bed.  I’m not ready yet to let that go.

That’s fun for me.