Who's Taking Care of Our Children?

Last Thursday I went with Maya' kindergarten to a puppet theatre. Maya was still at home coughing, but because she was on the mend, I decided she could go to the show. She loves them puppet shows very much.

I usually go with the kiddies to help a bit (and believe me or not, I am the only parent who ever comes) because to take 34 squirmy, slightly hyper active 4 year olds outside the kindy (and with a bus) it is not easy.

This time we arrived a bit early at the kindy so Maya had the chance to participate in the music lesson and I had the opportunity to observe the lesson and the sorroundings...There are 34 kids at Maya's kindy, from 3 to 4 tears old, ONE TEACHER and ONE HELPER. They sit in a room that is almost the same dimensions as my living room...They hardly have room to turn around and barely enough chairs to sit on. I don't think the bulding was meant for such a large group of kids. Oh, and they have only two toilets...

I was watching the children, many of them with snotty noses (and faces), sneezing, coughing, dirty and with unlaced shoes...

The kindy was smelling of urine and bleach and my heart lurched in my chest. The picture was bleak, depressing. The room was cold as there are no carpets on the stony floor and dark, as there are only two windows.

And this is a city hall operated kindy. Maybe the private ones are fancier, but the prices...not that the state owned ones are much cheaper...

Israel is a country with a high birth rate (an average family has usually three kids), a lot of problems and the money is tight. I am not here to discuss budget politics and such because I would enter a very shifty place but I am appaled at the conditions in the state owned kindergartens and schools ( I taught in them for 5 years, so I know). Not to talk about the teachers' wages, that a totally different (and painful) story.

I know Israel is not America (not even Europe) but, education, come on, nodoby is giving it a lot of thought. That's why in the end I have to pay for the kindy a lot of money every month and my daughter stays at home, sick with one virus or another...Last year was cathastrophic as she was younger and never out of our home, thank God this year she knows to take care of herself (more or less) - wash her hands, wipe her nose and stuff like that.

And believe it or not, she likes to go at the kindy, loves the kids and her teacher.

Speaking of which...her teacher, Dorit is absolutely fantastic. And the same goes for her helper, Sigal. They are able to to so much with so little resources. They are kind and caring and I am in awe how on Earth are they able to cope...Maya loves them both and that says a lot to me. Last year the teacher told us Maya had "problems" and then she left after a few months, not being able to cope (so, who had the "problems" in the end?).

So, what can I say... While the system is faulty and the ones who should don't give a damn, thank God for the simple people who care...As long as there are teachers like Dorit and Sigal I must say there is still hope for humanity.

(Even though the picture is not very...professional, I've uploaded it for you to see the one and only room in Maya's kindy. The picture is taken during their Hanukka party, last December).

I Don't Believe It!

I know that I tend to exagerate when my kids are concerned. I know I want to much from society, from people. I know that Israeli kindergartens in cities that are on the coast have sand in their yards, and I know that because whenever Maya goes to the kindergarten she comes home with her hair and shoes full of sand. But the quantity of sand I found in her trainers today...it goes way beyond my comprehension. She's three years old, for God's sake! Does anybody check her shoes when they return from playing outside? Is it not enough that this week every single day when I went to pick her up I found her face full of snot and dirt? Was it such a chore to wipe her nose or to wash their face? They are small kids, somebody needs to keep an eye on them, to teach them how to do things. I tell Maya every morning what to do, how to behave. But still, she's little, she's to learn a lot and she forgets...

And I'm paying an awful lot of money for the darn thing...

Don't Cry, My Baby!

Image by tostadophoto.com via Flickr

Maya is still crying in the morning, telling me that she doesn't want to go to the gan (kindergarten in Hebrew). This morning I could hardly peel her from myself as she cried so hard. I ended crying myself, my husband got pissed off and said :"I thought I had one child and now I have two" (isn't he considerate?). So I cried harder and told him to f*** off and leave me alone. Half of the kids in Maya's gan are still crying in the morning. Of course, even if Maya's in a good mood, seeing them triggers her tears too and when I leave I can hear them howling from a distance. Of God, I didn't know it would be so hard...
Maya loves kids and loves to be among them, I think the fact that she doesn't like to be told off and that she doesn't understand everything in Hebrew make her miserable. And the teacher doesn't help much, not being able to understand Maya's handicap. We live here in a country of immigrants. There are a lot of kids that go to the gan and school without knowing the language. For pupils and students they have ulpanim (ulpan, singular - a special school for learning the hebrew language) and because usually kids Maya's age pick quickly the language, they are just put in gan and they learn there from interacting with other kids. When Maya started kindergarten, she knew her basic Hebrew and now her vocabulary expanded seriously. But she still has problems understanding, for example, stories or long poems. So she gets bored quickly when they have story time and being Maya, she doesn't want to just sit and listen...imagine yourself being forced to sit through a lecture that is spoken in a language you still have difficulties understanding. You'll get bored or even worse, frustrated. But you, being an adult, will sit it through. Well, Maya is three years old and haven't yet mastered the science of sitting quietly just because she "has to". She usualy wanders away and when I go to pick her up at noon, I am given a lecture by the teacher and advised to take her to a phychologist. I try to reason with her, but I am speaking to a wall in most of the cases. Well, what next?
I love Maya very much, she is really the reason why I wake up in the morning, I also know that I have to let her go, but I don't like the fact that going to the gan doesn't make her if not happy, at least pleased. And I am not pleased at all by her teacher. I think I'll have to make inquiries and take her to a private gan. It is more expensive, but from what I've heard, they have only 10 -15 kids in a group...
That's it for now...See you all later, with better things, I hope...

No More Moping Around, I Had Enough!

Image by j / f / photos via Flickr

I has been a hell of a week, I am telling you...
First of all, with Maya going to the kindergarten, it just threw me off balance completely. I didn't know my sanity depended so much on the routine I had with my baby. In the mornings, when she's gone, I cannot find my place, and I just surprise myself staring at the computer's monitor without actually seing anything or forgeting that I have to cook her lunch. When she's home from kindergarten, after I give her a bath as she is always filthy I check her over, and every day I observe a new scratch or bruise, a new bite mark. Up to today she's been bitten a few times by a fellow kindergartener, she is blue and yellow on different parts of her body, her kneew started healing but are still badly scratched, her hair is always full of sand and because she had a runny nose, the last two days she had snot smeared all over her face. They pay little attention to things like this at her kindergarten and we're lucky that at least she is able to pull up her underwear after going to the toilet, otherwise she'll be running with a bare bottom...
This, and all kind of stuff I won't mention just made my week a bad one. At least tomorow is Saturday and I hope on Sunday things will look better. They had to. I had enough of felling sorry for myself. I feel I have to do something, I cannot stay and complain about my crappy life until...until what? Nobody is going to solve my problems, nobody is going to do anything for me. Well, not if I'll pay them to do it (just kidding). So I've decided no matter what, I'll start making changes. Small ones, nothing too dramatic, nothing to scary. And I'll start with sports. Before Maya, I went to the gym almost every day, for one or two hours. I had aerobics lessons, yoga, pilates, it was a lot of fun. When I was pregnant, because my high-risk pregnancy, all kind of physical activity was a big "No-No". After Maya was born, I didn't have time, then money and so on...But no more excuses. I have tons of DVDs with all types of workouts, including yoga and I have my eliptical machine we use now as a stand for hanging clothes on it...And I also think some yoga with Maya would be nice, as I have the "Yoga for Kids" DVD series. I know it will all do me good, we know about the hormones that the body produces during workouts, don't we?
So, it is all settled now. No more moping around. Good bye depression, hello good mood! (I'll see to that and I'll also keep you posted)

Maya in Kindergarten Land

First of all, I have to thank my long lost and found friend Alexandrina for the idea for this post's title. I think I'll make it like a generic title for all my posts related to Maya's adventures in kindergarten.

Today when I went to take Maya from the kindergarten the teacher was all in a dither. Maya "painted" the tables and chairs with ink pens. And also a book...Well, tell me please, who the heck gives to a three years old kid ink pens? I made that mistake once and I spent a whole afternoon in the company of a brush and some bleach, scrubbing the walls. After that "event", I threw the pens in the bin. Now, we have wax crayons or watercolors. So, a teacher with some experience should know better what is appropriate for kids Maya's age.

She also got punished because she threw sand at kids.They threw back at her all right, because at home I had to gave her a bath, wash her hair that was full of sand and desinfect all the cuts and bruises she aquired. At least with the sand it should be OK, one couldn't expect anything in a country were 80% of everything is sand.And at Maya's kindergarten, they take the kids out to play every day and the yard is nothing but a huge sand pit.

I asked her today if she made any friends at the kindergarten and she answered positively. And I meant girl friends. When I asked for their names, she said "Alon and Ehiel"(these are boys' names).Sigh.Go figure...

Anyhow, I'll keep you posted. And thank you all for the thumbs up. It helped enormously!

A Different Kind of Good Bye

Image by _Beat_【ツ】 via Flickr

There are a lot of good byes to be said in life
Good bye to a loved one on his last road
Good bye to the first love
lost forever in the forest of lost loves
Good bye to the son that goes to the army
for three years of unslept nights
Good bye to a sister headed back home
Good bye to hopes
fallen leaves
broken wings
wilted flowers
autumn rain
holidays in distant places
lost things we'll never find again.
Well, on Tuesday I'm going to say a different kind of good bye. Maya's going to the kindergarten, it will be her first day ever ouside the house, without us, her parents. It is a happy good bye, this time, no matter how hard it is for me to say it. It is a grateful good bye for having such a special being in my life. It is a good bye, as it is a part of life's thread.
It will be Maya's first good bye as she's going forward a new stage in her life, towards her independence, towards building her own experiences, her own memories, her own lessons. That won't include me.
And even though it hurts like hell I am going to be happy for my little girl. Even though with every kiss given in the kindergarten's gate I'll die inside a bit. I love her and I need to let her be herself...