more about the Sniglet

HUGE DRAMA-QUEEN SIGH okay. I guess some clarification on the kindergarten thing would be advisable here.

A first thing you should know is that "kindergarten" in German is actually daycare, more or less. (It's far more structured than American daycare of course - after all, we're talking about something run by Germans.) So if I say he has to go for another year, it's not because he flunked, it's because his late-October birthday makes him too young to start first grade this year.

A second thing is this: when Ignatz was being all ADD, and we were having to talk to his teachers all the time, other people were all "oh pishtosh, all kids forget things and act out occasionally." Here's the thing about that. When a teacher has 17 boys in her class and she tells you yours is being a problem, you can be fairly sure that his behavior is not just normal boy-behavior. That's the assumption we're making with the Sniglet: his teacher sees kids that age all day every day. If she says there's a problem, there's a problem. Actually, that's the assumption I'm making. DrBob is um...resisting.

So the problem. We know he's moody as hell. Lately he's apparently being aggressive, like wrestly- and hitting-aggressive, and not in a friendly way. She asked me for this conference because the rest of the class is turning against him, and she's running out of ideas. She suggested judo, as a way to work off some of the aggression. So did the ergotherapist he sees at kindergarten on Wednesdays.

The ergotherapist suggested that um, six months ago, and we haven't done anything about it. In general, things that involve calling Germans on the phone are DrBob's department, but apparently things that involve the children are suddenly exclusively my department, so even though he said he'd call the Judo people after Christmas in the Spring tomorrow, it emerged today that all this time he's been expecting me to call them. And that epiphany led to the suspicion (if by suspicion you understand "certain knowledge based on actual historical precedent") that I'll be the one to go gear-shopping and attend all the practices and matches and everything, and: Judo is wrestling. I hate wrestling. I hate everything about it. Icko.

So I'm thinking about sticking him in karate. Ignatz too, because he has to pick another sport now that he's given up on hockey, and it'd make my life easier to take two kids to one practice per week. I mentioned karate over dinner, and DrBob, who, let us remember, will not be contributing any time or effort whatsoever to this endeavor - not even to make one phone call - feels that judo would be the better choice. He gets to make the decisions, and then I have to do all the work? Um, yeah, I'm gonna have to go with "I don't fucking think so" for 500, Alex.

SIGH. And little Mr Negative got all grouchy and said he didn't want to do karate OR judo and he would hate me forever, even though he doesn't really know what they are. So then, to clarify, I made him stand up, and I punched him in the chest and said "karate's like that", and then I wrestled him to the floor and said "and judo's like this.* So which do you want to do?" And he jumped up with a big grin and said "BOTH!"

*Gimme a break, you have to explain things in simple terms to a five-year-old.

And before you even start, because I know some of you want to: this is a small town. No kung fu, no tae kwon do, no aikido, no tai chi, not even tae bo. I'm sure you know of something much better, but we don't have that. Just karate and judo.

SO I'm going to make that stupid phone call tomorrow, and start both my kids in karate next week, and we'll move the Sniglet to judo after awhile if it seems like a good idea. And if I can get someone else to take him to practice.

Oh yay, one more thing to have to remember every week.

Song du jour of the day is Rock the Casbah, by the Clash.