Raai de Kraai

Tobias is adjusting really well to school these days. Initially he was shy, waiting to see what happened, staying close to the teacher, playing by himself, if at all. These days he is more into playing with children and participating in all sorts of stuff. His teacher told us that she even had to reprimand him for playing too wildly with the sand-table. Tobias' take on it was: "We were just playing pirates in the sand...". It sounds like he is making some friends judging by the fact that we hear a few names repeated significantly more often than others...

At home he is more outgoing as well. The other day I caught him calling out "Loek!". So, I checked to see what he was up to. Turns out he was looking into the neighbor's yard, saw their little boy (Loek, who is less than a year older) sitting inside, and wanted to play with him, hence the calling. He later told me that he just wanted to play tennis with Loek... Also he takes out his bike or tractor more often and goes into the alleyway behind our house and stays out there quite a while sometimes. Usually it turns out he met someone and is racing or playing ball or whatever else they do out there. Very nice to see...

Just like it is hard to imagine what it is like to have children until you have them, it is hard to imagine what it is like to have children in school until you have them... (or children going out into alleyways by themselves for that matter...). It was only 2 weeks after he started school that Lisa and I were sitting in the school gym watching the children, including Tobias, perform a dance-night. Then there was the parent-teacher meeting, the cleaning of the classroom, the sportsday and all that. We try to participate as much as we can, but it just isn't possible to participate in everything. Personally, I particularly had a knot in my stomach having to drop Tobias off at the track for sportsday last Wednesday...

It was, however, certainly possible to participate in a personal assignment, or in this case in entertaining an unexpected visitor: Raai de Kraai (Raai the Crow). He is a character they use in the reading method at school. Raai is a hand puppet and he experiences all sorts of stuff through stories. Well, the handpuppet spends a weekend a year in each child's home. The idea is that Raai's experiences are recorded by the child (read: parents) and gathered in Raai's sleep-over book. As you can see we took Raai to the beach. He had a great day as did we...! Tobias and Raai were quite inseperable at times... :-)


For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle

Americanization...

Whenever we visit the US we Americanize ourselves and our kids for a little while (well, for now, mainly Tobias I guess, but I am sure we will Lorelei too, sometime in the future...). It is very nice to get a chance to do that every once in a while, and even nicer to be able to give our children the opportunity to experience some of Lisa's culture and up-bringing. 

This time American Football was on the menu.... pretty much every day :-). I bought Tobias a "PeeWee" sized ball and we played. I was his primary teacher, but hey, what do I know. So, I showed him how to throw, not that I am any good at that myself.... Fortunately we had a secondary teacher too; Granddaddy. After some instructions from a seasoned veteran at the game Tobias is able to toss that thing quite well... (We all were quite amazed by how well he picks up such stuff). I taught him how to kick, which was good because most Americans have no idea how to kick a ball (of any kind...), even the pros ;-). Here you can see him in action. I also taught him some of the terminology like "Touch down!", "Field goal!" and such. So, the football practice looked somewhat like this: Tobias tosses the ball to me, I toss it back, Tobias catches, runs around the yard and falls on the ground somewhere near a tree shouting "Touch down!". Then I set up the ball for a field goal, Tobias kicks it, then runs after it shouting "Field goal!" (times 20...). So, loads of fun! Another term I taught him about was "Fumble", which apparently was very amusing to him, because after that he kept fumbling any ball tossed at him...

Another part of Tobias' interest during this trip were fire hydrants, as they were over a year ago when we went for Christmas. Then we only saw red ones, but this time they came in all sorts of colors (apparently something to do with the water pressure...). Anyway, this one is "no-color with a green helmet" :-). As you can see in this picture a real professor is explaining how the fire hydrant works! That was exciting. The other kids in this picture are Tobias' second cousins Tripp and Brandt who were staying at their grandparents place because of the swine-flu (their school was closed that day...).

The next scheduled Americanization opportunity is Christmas. I am pretty sure I am going to have to get a baseball and glove then. I am already looking forward to it! Another item on our next schedule is attending a sports game.

For news on Tobias' sister Lorelei visit: Lorelei Michelle