Preschool

About a month or two ago it was a hot topic for me. Teodor started to show interest in other children, stopped being afraid of them, so I was thinking maybe we could give it a try from September. Not to mention we need him to hear more Russian because his dad is simply not present and talkative enough. We both feel like we should boost his speaking skills somehow and preschool seemed like a pretty good option. Another reason why I was considering it was upcoming autumn/winter with its beautifully depressing weather and Anastasia starting to crawl and take his toys.

First, we were thinking about the preschool next to our building, that would be a pretty smart choice, getting him there and back would take no time. But I've always felt it was a very old-fashioned place because one almost never saw the kids outside in the bad weather (are they in all autumn/winter long? probably yes, because when we tried that nursery last summer they were amazed I go out with T. even in the rain) and the teachers are old big ladies. Surprisingly, we both agreed it's a bit scary place as we both witnessed teachers interacting (or better to say not interacting) with the children. So this one was/is out of the game.

Next where I looked was a private sector...we checked several private preschool's websites. Programmes made to please parents, not children. 

OK, let's try Montessori, there is no pure/real Montessori children's house in Tallinn - WHAAT??? (I should start it :-p) Well, we could go with Montessori-inspired. We found one on the dad's way to work - that would be convenient as we don't have a car and it simply doesn't make sense to spend the whole morning getting him to the place, go home and immediately go to pick him up, right? But it is Estonian and it's going to move somewhere. The last option left was a place on the other side of the town (let's face it, Tallinn is not a city), which was quite nice when we tried it for two days last September when I started to work nearby. The teachers were friendly (to find a nice Russian teacher who is not scary is quite a task), the environment was ok...The tuiton would be doable if he went only in the mornings. 

Hm, other side of the town...then we need a car. We even went to check some cars. Ok, we can pay for the car. If we have a car, we also need car seats. A few hundreds euros extra. Going there and back's gonna cost money. Seems like we can still afford it. Oh, wait. We want to add more stuff into our e-shop (www.memme.ee). It doesn't look like we have enough money to have it all. In addition to our realization we are way too lazy to deal with getting him there and back, plus we have a nice, quiet days with some outbursts but generally things go fine around here.

We are now considering The International School of Estonia from September 2017 as they provide a huge discount on tuition for full-time teachers' children...meaning if he gets in (which is not sure), I will be stuck with teaching for another 18 years. Yay! The plan was to have a real shop besides the e-shop.

It's going to be probably a very academic place, I'd rather have him play all day long still at this age but getting in there and obtaining IB diploma just seems more important for the rest of his life than playing with play-silks. Don't know, nothing's set in the stone yet, just maybe that he'll stay at home with us the next school year.