Owen started Tae Kwon Do 3 weeks ago. They have a special where you get 25 classes for $25 and a free uniform. His age group has classes available MWF and for the most part we have made all of them. It makes Mondays fun because we go from our piano lessons that are waaaaaaay out at one end of the county (the only Suzuki piano teacher taking student in the area) straight to TKD at the other end of the county, though not waaaaaaaaaaay out there but still it takes, with no traffic (ha)nearly 45 minutes to get from one to the other. That said, the kids don't mind too much. The little ones nap on the way to piano, and if I'm lucky straight through the lesson or most of it. Owen catches a nap on the way to TKD and even Emma does occasionally and that girl never naps so that alone makes me feel ok about this. I don't think she gets nearly enough sleep, but that's a post for another day.
Back to TKD. Today they were upgrading belts with black stripes or a new color. The way they do the 7 & under crowd is that they have several levels of the white belt. So they still get to move up in color and feel like they are going somewhere. Newbies have no belt. Today was the day that Owen got his actual white belt. It was very cute all the kids clap for one another, the instructor asks the parent how they are behaving at home and if they are keeping up their end of the deal at home. Boy it is so tempting to say "no he's been a little turd more often than I'd like" but wouldn't that be mortifying. I would never do that in front of the class and other parents.
He is so darn proud of himself now. You couldn't wipe the smile off his face. Last week one of the Masters wrote his name in Korean on his gui (gee?) uniform- he thinks that is pretty much the bomb too. He kept telling me "I've been waiting my whole life for this!"
This is how they rope you in you see. Next week or the week after our 25 classes will be up. Then we get to pay the actual tuition *gulp* for this thing. I just look at it as money we would have spent had we put them in private school. If we had done that they wouldn't most certainly not be doing piano, gymnastics, art (Emma) and TKD (Owen). All I can say for now is Thank God we only have 2 kids doing all this. I need to start saving now to be sure we can offer some of the same opportunities up to the other two monkeys. yeesh. Maybe they'll be introverts and just want to stay home a few more years. The way they both cling to me in public places gives me a little hope of that anyway!