Kindergarten Eve

Lots of activity these days making our new house feel like home which includes meeting the neighbors.  So far we've met a family from Seattle and an Italian/American couple (she's from Chicago).  Pretty cool.  What's even cooler is this small world story - see if you can follow along.  When I was at a Kindergarten open house registering Lily, I overheard a father speaking English to his daughter.  I asked him his opinion of the school and did some light chit chat.  Last week, I met up with a friend who introduced me to a group of her friends....one of them being the same man from the Kindergarten a month ago.  Then....after talking to him...he works closely with the husband of the Seattle family that lives above us....now that is crazy...because Munich is big and I barely know anyone here.

Anyway, this post is meant to be about Lily even though I'm staring at 2 smiling babies right now who are now 4 months old and grabbing everything in sight.

Tomorrow is a big milestone for all of us.  Lily is starting Kindergarten.  The vast majority of children here go to all day Kindergarten starting at age 3 for 3 years.  This would be called preschool in America but keep in mind, it's totally normal for kids to go to school all day every day starting at age 3.  Of the dozen or so schools I registered Lily for, Lily got into 1 school, phew, about a mile away.  It's operated by a church and receives some funding from the state.  Her school has 80 kids divided into 4 groups.  Each group ends at a different time, Lily's group ending the earliest at 2pm.  She is also in the group with the smallest amount of children (15) and most teachers (3).  It is this way because 3 of the kids in her group are developmentally disabled.  This worked out well for us because I wasn't ready for her to be gone from 8-4, small class size will help her with the language barrier, and hopefully introduce empathy and understanding for all kinds of kids.  She was accepted to start in September but then we were recently asked whether we'd be interested in Lily starting already tomorrow because another child moved away on short notice. Heck yea!  This will definitely lighten the load for me not having 3 kids with me every day until September.  And what's extra cool, the Kindergeld (children's money) we get from the government, about 180 Euros per kid per month, easily pays for her school. 

Here are a few pics of our big Lil' before she embarks on the new world of Kindergarten.  

A rare mommy/daughter restaurant adventure

One of Lily's playgroups she went to a couple times a week from 9-12 near our old home for the last 7 months.  This was her last day.

Lily always demands to hold the umbrella.

Lily in mommy's boots while we try to unpack boxes.