Kid's corner

Once more, all was not well at school. It seems that Elias turned out to be an aggressive little fellar at times, when playing with the other children. We were quite shocked and we are still not over it. After all, we have never observed Elias deliberately hurting other kids. My best guess is that he defends himself -- something we encouraged him to do, since he often came home with stories of how the other children pushed and hit him -- but that he does not know where to set the limit. All our information is of course second hand at best.

It has taken a while, from the removal of the side wheels to the actual willingness to try riding a bike with but two wheels (no, he is not yet moving to a unicycle) and finally to succeeding in staying upright, but today we reached a milestone.

Like last year, we again stayed in Zell am See for a week to have some skiing fun. Given that we numbered 12, we rented 3 apartments in the Appartmenthaus Edelweiss, which is located near the edge of the town (on the road to Saalfelden, the second last building). The train had a 1 hour delay, so we arrived in the afternoon, barging into our rooms at around 13:45. The second half of the party was by then deep entrenched in gridlock, due to heavy snowfall and avalanche warnings throughout the area.

For now, and I hope, also in the near and far future, Elias and Nathan really enjoy themselves playing together.

They have fallen behind the DOF when Elias decided to shift, causing Nathan to roll off. Nathan is laughing, in case you are not sure.

Elias loves to hide under the table. Basically, up to now, he always does so when he hears somebody come in, so they have to (feign) search(ing) for him. Last Sunday a Mathias, friend of his, came over to create some havoc at our place and devour pancakes afterwards. The first stop they made in their play was ... under the table. Proof of this feat was acquired, and can be seen here:

A lot has happened during the past months, a bit too much to restate here. Elias entered second year in preschool/kindergarten this year. At the end of last year, his teachers were really happy about his progress, his behaviour, etc. So there would be no problem going to the next year. Yet his teacher is very strict and quite demanding. This was reflected in the first time we got some feedback, where we were pointed out that Elias was not really able to keep up, was easily distracted, did not raise his finger to answer questions, etc.

Today, Elias went for a 6-monthly checkup to the orthopedist. After the last checkup, we decided to buy him regular shoes and see how his feet develop. It seems like that was the right decision. His support surface on his soles has increased, and on the right (the worst) foot, the only part that is still turning inwards is his big toe. So, ordinary shoes from now on. This is a great relief in two aspects. First and foremost, it means that the odds of Elias having trouble later on are getting smaller.

Today, September 1st, traditionally marks the first day of school in Belgium. This year, Elias is going to the second year of kindergarten (typically, age 3.5-4.5). His teacher is juf Christine, who is supposedly strict, but fun. From what we heard, everything well very well. Lunch was spaghetti, which supposedly is liked by most kids, so Elias did eat.

When we asked where his glasses were (we were afraid they were already broken), they were still in the classroom, because they had to evacuate the class because on kid threw up somewhere in the afternoon, and even after cleaning up the mess, the smell lingered. And juf Christine feared Elias would more easily break his glasses when wearing the during playtime. But because he needs to adapt to the shapes of objects as they really are, he should wear his glasses at all times. So we'll see how long they last ;-)

Today we had an appointment to have Elias' eyes checked. At the yearly check-up at the CLB in his school, he received a note claiming his sight was not very good (borderline normal) and his eyes we not positioned correctly. Because we wanted to make sure there actually was a problem, we consulted a specialist today. The first thing he said was that his eyes were positioned correctly, so that CLB claim turned out to be false.

June 27, 2008. The last day at school for Elias. And I was late picking him up :-/ As in 30 minutes late. Somehow my brain thought I needed to pick him up at 15:35 instead of 15:05.