Thanks. The posts are very helpful. I guess there is this anxiety. Although I think it is going to be fine. For someone who has done 7 countries in 8 days, I am not worried about being a chauffeur. I only have one and we do live in Manhattan, so I bike 1 mile to Mandarin from school. Two miles to piano (where her ballet is also), but that is 2 blocks from home.
And since I am someone who has gone to London for lunch, I look forward to traveling with her. She was great when we went to Central America last year, excited about seeing Mayan pyramids. So I have 3 trips planned post Christmas.
And since we spend our summers on the beach, she gets great experiences here, like yesterday the neighbors went for a walk on the inlet and found all kinds of stuff, including a sea horse. So she held it etc.
Everything counts. The tennis lessons, the gymnastics. What I am finding is her understanding of the world expanding. And the piano lessons -- as painful as they are for me, since I must practice with her -- is so valuable to teach her perseverance. Everyone knows how easily things come to these kids. There are times where she is so determined but also times, she dismisses when it is difficult.
Strange the comments about K is mostly play. Here, kids must be reading at the end of K, or there is a request to send them to remedical reading in the summer. This was an Upper West side public school my friend's daughter went to and she had to take the summer reading. We are in NJ for the summer and they have 10/1 cut-off and parents are holding back kids with summer birthdays because they think K is like grade 1 and their kids are not ready. I cannot imagine holding DD back, even if ND. In NYS you cannot for public school. You start late, you go to grade 1 and catch up, expecting you went to preschool when you were suppose to go to K.
So I am willing to be chauffeur, I am willing to travel everywhere and plan trips to the Liberty Science Center on Saturday mornings. And practice piano with her every day. We used to have date night but that made me too tired, since I still had to get up the next morning. So now we all go to the Harvard club on Friday nights to go dancing and have dinner. DD loves it and actually there are a few families for Friday night so it is nice. So no date nights. That is our sacrifice. But we do get them on the cruises, when DD runs to the kids' club after she eats her dinner.
Ren
