After a lot of talking with my husband and thinking, we decided to not enroll Motoki in the athletics club. As sad as it is to say, it ends up boiling down to money. Not that we can`t afford it (it is outrageous… But that`s not the issue) – but rather that it would be a total waste to have him join it now.
The school year ends in the middle of March. For the last few weeks there are various events… The only advantage to joining now is that we would only have to pay half the regular entrance fee… A discount of 3000yen. And in return, we`d pay 2 months worth of class fees (a total of 12000yen) for two classes. In my eyes, a complete waste. I`d much rather pay the regular entrance fee and start at a point where there are a normal number of classes each month.
Motoki was disappointed, but that is life. We will consider joining again in April.
I doubt there is anyone out there who cares about this as much as we do, but more fun car info after the break!
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Motoki has poor coordination. He runs a bit oddly, and has a lot of trouble with activities that require fast movement. He is horrific at throwing things and is the only child in his kindergarten class who cannot jump rope at least once. I think he is fairly aware that he is not so strong in that area and does his best to avoid that sort of activity. Not to say he doesn`t enjoy moving around – he just avoids the specific bits that he has trouble with. When playing a game using a ball, he will be the one to run and pick up the ball – but will pass it on to a friend to throw.
The kindergarten offers an optional after school athletics club/class. A teacher comes from a local sports gym and there is an hour long class once every week after kindergarten ends. So far, Motoki has expressed absolutely NO interest in joining it. He would dodge the suggestion or straight out say no… But this month a pamphlet came again and I brought the subject up. One of his best friends is in the club, so apparently things are different this time around – he really wanted to go. So we signed up for the free demo class and went today. I went too so I could watch.
Motoki was good through the class, did his best… And the teacher was good with all the kids. So I decided to sign him up and picked up all the forms – then noticed… It is way way too expensive for what it is. Seriously. I was half gawking at the price. A group class, once a week, should not be around $75/month. Or at least it doesn`t seem like it should. But we`ll just have to cough that up somehow.
Motoki is 5 now. He`s still very small compared to his peers, but eventually did start talking. Once in kindergarten for about 3 months the first words began to squeeze their way out. Things built gradually from there, and now he talks quite a lot… But of course, not at age level. On his most recent developmental test, he scored around 73… Just below the 75 line for mental retardation. So he still carries a card and is eligible for services. Whether he will go further than this in terms of IQ – we do not know. Most likely he will remain “borderline”.
If he stays as small as he is compared to his peers, we may just be able to get through the rest of the time until adulthood (or rather, until age starts showing) with people just thinking he is younger than he really is. At this point there are no abnormal behaviors – nothing other than being younger in development than reality.
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