September 5, 2010: On the Eve of Kindergarten
Ivan starts Kindergarten in Vienna tomorrow. In Austria, Kindergarten is kind of a combination of the preschool and kindergarten years in the U.S. (3 - 5), with the first year of elementary school starting with first grade at 6. The church nearest our house has a parish Kindergarten and they happened to have one spot open for this fall, so Ivan will be able to walk to school (we found out later that we were extremely lucky to get in, because private Kindergartens usually have long waiting lists and don't accept latecomers). He's very excited about the first day of school and even picked out a special outfit for the first day that none of us were allowed to see. He's mentioned a few times that he's worried about not being able to speak German well enough but it doesn't seem to be dampening his excitement too much, which is a huge relief for me.
Ivan was generally optimistic about moving to Austria but he didn't seem to completely understand what it meant (I'm not sure I did either, to be fair). He has dealt with the whole summer of packing and moving and adjusting to new places very well, though. He finds things to be excited about wherever he is (baseball, trains, parks, swimming pools) instead of thinking about things he's missing.
To spend a day alone with Ivan is to be kissed and hugged more than you ever have been in your life. He is a warm and affectionate kid, there's no getting around it. If you're walking with him, he'll probably take your hand. If you're watching a movie with him, he'll probably sit right next to you and put your arm around him. And if you're lucky enough to sit next to him at dinner or in church, he might just kiss your hand or shoulder about 35 times. There's nothing quite like being met at the door with a big Ivan smile and welcome hug though.
He's also a very busy kid and loves to do things with another person but not always with more than one, which is becoming challenging in a family of five. Over the winter, he kept himself busy mostly by dressing up as various superheros and movie characters (guess who's coming to dinner? Buzz Lightyear!), putting together jigsaw puzzles and playing puzzle games, and battling me to the death, repeatedly. After summer arrived, it was nothing but baseball, swimming and playing at the park on his mind.
All of those activities are great to do with Mama, Papa, and Noni, but not so much with his little brother. Nikola and Ivan have had a rocky relationship from the beginning and it's not hard to see why. Nikola is good at bothering his big brother and Ivan is very sensitive to his bothering. I know, they're brothers, I can completely empathize but I do wish for the day when they'll actually be able and willing to play together. In our new apartment, the boys are sharing a room together and Veronika will have her own room, so we'll see how that changes things. At first, I think Ivan felt snubbed to be lumped with Nikola instead of Veronika (like he was in our last place) but there are moments when he does enjoy being a big brother, especially when Veronika's not around. On a recent rainy walk to their cousins' house, Ivan held the umbrella over Nikola's head the whole way and carefully guided him along the sidewalk.
Ivan remains a very sensitive and emotional kid, which is very sweet to see. I have to catch myself lots of times from smiling at him at inappropriate times (like when he's crying about something) because he really doesn't like his emotions to be belittled (not that that's what I'm doing, but still). He has his feelings hurt more easily than Veronika and is more prone to emotional overreactions as well, which pairs up nicely with his stubbornness for some interesting situations. When something doesn't go his way and he's not in a good state to accept it, his usual recourse is try to assert some kind of control over the situation, either by making a wild statement about what will NEVER EVER happen again in the future or by taking some other action to remind us that he's still a free person. My all-time favorite example of this was when we were walking somewhere and we told him that some of his plans weren't going to work out like he had hoped, so he announced, "Well, I'm just walking backwards!" And so he did.
That was a long time ago though. When we leave for Kindergarten in the morning, I'm sure he'll be walking forwards.
Posted by papa at 04:09 PM