An apology

I am sorry I haven't been around, my Teeming Millions. Okay, Teeming Dozen. (You guys teem a lot, this makes you worth millions) I am unaccountably tired this week and I have no idea why.

So we shall have to make do with my disjointed ramblings today.

We toured a Montessori school yesterday, and expect to tour a "free school" (which is sort of like the Children's School in Atlanta) on Saturday. We are looking at all kinds of options and I cannot get over the idea that this is what I should have done when we got here, I might have saved us all a great deal of heartache. Or maybe not, who knows. Ultimately, there are a couple things I cannot get over.

One is, that Douwe has had seven, count 'em, seven diffferent teachers in a span of time which amounts to about five months in school. I think this is irredeemably bad; and the response I get when I being this up is that the other children aren't bothered by it. Well, maybe they are not. Douwe says that he is not. But he asks me every day who his teacher is going to be, and the reality is that most of the time I am not sure myself. This cannot be good.

One is, that despite much conversation about the emphasis at this school on not teasing or harassing each other, the amount of just plain "kids bugging each other" has risen to the point that parents are complaining about it in the schoolyard and we are all saying the same thing -- that the response does not appear to be effective or timely.

I expect a certain amount of teasing. I expect also that it will be handled. I do not have the feeling that it is being handled.

And of course, there is the factor that his teacher says she just has no idea how to proceed with him -- and this is a combined classroom, which means he will have the same teacher (er, teaching staff, I suppose) next year.

I went to the local agency which is supposed to find people jobs and ensure that they are productive citizens and so on with my pile of diplomas. They are sending them off to see if it is possible to make me over into a Dutch lawyer or not. The nice lady there thinks that with maybe a year or two of schooling I can get licensed here.

Daan announced to day that Rowan (a little boy at school evidently) is his best friend and that the dirt on his sweater was from when he and Rowan pushed each other to the ground in the sand box today at play school. This is how 3 year old boys show their love for one another evidently.

Where did a three year old learn the term "best friend"?