And we had a meeting with Benjamin's school doctor - a standard thing for all the new zero-class kids. She wanted to know...
- Why he didn't get enough sleep (because we have to wake him up most mornings)
- Why we don't let him watch more Swedish TV (because, as she put it, a little input might help his language skills)
- Whether we have fully appreciated the difficulty of being a middle child
- Whether we are seeing a doctor sufficiently often for his glasses (like we have much say in that one - I think his appointment times are issued by the state)
- Why he can't read yet
I must say, the last one really surprised me. Reading is not a given for preschoolers here, and if I tell a Swede that I learned to read when I was 5, they get a look of sorrow on their face and say something like, "oh, I'm so sorry." Because of course, by learning to read, I clearly must have missed out on some important playing time. So, we have been sort of hanging out, waiting for the kids to show interest, and not pushing the reading thing along until the school starts working on it. (Of course, if he had shown the least interest, I would have jumped on it!) Anyway, I now have a 7-year-old who can't read, and isn't expected to do so before next year. Scary.
So now I'm blogging while the kids are in front of Swedish Disney channel, watching dubbed American cartoons. Does that make me a better mother... or a worse one...
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