A Matter of Choice

It's back to school day today! After almost 3 months of lazy days, lie ins and not much of a schedule to stick to it was time to set the alarm and get the boys out of bed again.   It was a bit strange this morning,  it's actually the first year where I have to really use an alarm. They were always such early risers that it was never needed before,  always set but more as a back up in the unlikely event of us sleeping in.   Towards the end of the school year I did have to wake Leo a couple of days,  but it was mainly due to his reluctance to get moving than sleepiness.  But for the first time, we have had a school holiday where the boys haven't been up at the crack of dawn,  in fact their average getting up time was between 8am and 9am.  Something I'd never have been able to imagine in the days of broken sleep and 5am starts. Of course it's good but it meant I felt like I was getting up in the middle of the night when me alarm went ...

Doesn't time fly! It's a cliche but for good reason as it doesn't feel like that long ago Louka arrived and completed our family yet this year he's started school. (well nursery but we always call it school!)  Leo starting school was not a huge success and I hoped to do things differently with Louka to try to avoid similar problems.  Leo, at almost 3.5 years old was quite late to start, compared to his friends and that was a large part of the problem, as he could speak well and understand everything, but only in English.  It must have been very confusing to be suddenly in a world where nothing made sense, without Mum and not having a clue what was happening. I had always hoped to get Louka in earlier so it would be an easier transition.  At 2.5 years old Louka doesn't understand to quite the same level that Leo did although he knows Leo goes to school every day which makes things a little easier for him.  I'd been debating for a while over which nurs...

Loukas started nursery this week, I think it might have all caught up with him.   I thought he was a little bit quiet and turned around to see he hadn't even managed to eat his lunch or even sit down before falling asleep!

As we are already 6 weeks into the summer holidays this post is a little late but we've been busy with an unexpected visitor, birthdays and plently of swimming! The schools in Cyprus break up mid June and the long holiday runs until the second week of September.   This September Leo will start his compulsory year of Prodimodiki (pre-primary school), he will be in the same school as the last two years although possibly in a different class as he completed one year of kindergarten there and an optional year of Prodimodiki already. Leo has done well at school this year, improving on his Greek and coping with the change of class and teacher with no problems. As the only child with two English parents (and therefore having no real exposure to the Greek language out of school) I think he's done pretty well mixing with the rest of the class, there are just a couple of other children who speak English as well as Greek in his class but he plays with most of the other switching betw...

Regular readers, and especially those who follow me on Twitter will know that Leo started his new 'big school' last week. It was something I was very nervous about, right from the start when I enrolled him back in January not having a clue what I was doing. We had put him in Nursery back in June  as in addition to my nerves about sending him to an all Greek school, I was worried about sending him somewhere on his own for the first time  around the time I was due to give birth, I thought this might be a bit much for him to cope with at once/ Although in some respects we achieved our aim - get him used to the idea of school five days a week, it can't really be classed as a resounding success. At first in his 'baby school' as we now call it, as expected there were tears but after just a couple of days he went in reasonably happy as long as I did everything in the same way each day (get him out the car, put his bag on his back, hold hands and then choose a coloured...

The other week my friend Sam was due to come round for the afternoon for our usual tea / chat and for the kids to play.  As we've noticed recently that they seem to play nicely until about 4pm when all hell breaks loose this time she came prepared with distractions! Sam is the master of kiddy crafts and not only did she arrive with a plan, she brought everything needed to create not one but three masterpieces. As it was the day that was supposed to be the best to see the Perseid Meteor shower the plan was to make telescopes, binoculars and rockets. Armed with paints, toilet rolls, stickers and card she explained to two very excited children what they had to do.... and they actually listened! We ended up with extendible telescopes - two kitchen rolls painted black, one inside the other and decorated with silver stars. Binoculars - two toilet roll tubes painted and decorated, then stuck together and string attached. Rocket ships - more toilet rolls t...

On Monday , Leo had his first day at school, although not a complete disaster he didn't really enjoy it.  I think the main problem was that he didn't realise I was coming back for him! On Tuesday I made sure I explained before we left and again when we got to school that I was going to work (he understands that better than anything else) and I'd be back in an hour.  He was not happy and although he wanted to go he didn't want me to leave him.   His teacher took him and I gave him a quick kiss and said goodbye,  he was crying but was so sweet as he was also trying not to.  As I left I could hear his little cries and him saying 'I need my Mummy to stay here' Wednesday when I picked him up after 2 hours he seemed much happier, apparently they had given him a biscuit and a banana and that 'made me happy and not crying any more' He was very pleased to see me and showed me the other children, the teacher got them to wave and say bye, and he w...

Yesterday, after much debate about which Nursery school to choose  Leo had his first taste of school!  After seeing the school and actually being shown around it unlike all the others I was quite happy at sending him.  I had been trying to prepare him as best I could and when we got up yesterday morning he was excited and raring to go. He kept saying he was excited about going to school like his friends which was good but I was a little concerned he thought he would be going WITH his friends (they all go to different ones) I didn't want to point that out though in case I upset him before we even left. When we arrived he walked in happily with me and Eleni, his teacher came out to great us, she bent straight down to his level with a happy 'Kalimera'  (Good Morning) and asked him his name.  Ever the friendly boy he replied 'Morning, My name is Leo, look at my new school bag, it's got Thomas on it' She asked him if he wanted to come and meet the other kids an...

I've been wanting to get Leo started in nursery school for a long time now, most of his similar age friends (he's the youngest by 6 months but they are all 3 years old now) have been going for almost a year and Leo often asked why he didn't go to school like his friends. The main reason he hasn't been is the cost, and as I'm not working we couldn't afford or justify sending him and paying so much money out each month.  Back in January I registered him at pre-school  and I was quite stressed about that as I had no idea how or where to go about doing it, and even once I had still had no clue if he actually had a place or when he might be starting, if I would drop him at the gate or take him inside etc. I eventually got a phone call a few weeks ago saying he would have a place in September but was still none the wiser as to a start date, I asked and they said they would ring me! The other thing that was now worrying me was the fact that he would ...

Since (hopefully) enrolling Leo to start at pre-primary school later this year I've been thinking of what I can do to help him settle in. Although I'm trying to learn Greek and I know he will pick it up very quickly when he starts I want to do all I can to make it more comfortable for him. Obviously his English is much better than his Greek but we have always tried to teach him things we know as we've gone along. We taught him to count in both languages at the same time, for a long time he didn't separate the two,  counting 'one, ena.. two, dheio'  but now will count in whichever language you ask him to.... when he feels like it of course! He knows colours in both languages and will often pick something up and ask 'What's this colour in Greek Mummy?'  to reply with 'yes that's right Mummy, that's clever' when you reply! I've been following a great website now for a while - Greek For Kids and I'm certainly going to start...