by events that may now seem ridiculous. Then they were perceived almost as a tragedy.

I come from work. From the corridor I hear: a tense conversation is going on in the room. "I won't go to the garden anyway!" - "Did someone hurt you?" - "I didn't offend. I don't want to, that's all!" - "Yesвай спокойно разберемся- Вы чем сегодня занимались?" - "Nothing ... Just cut out circles ..." - "And did you do well?" - "Good. And the boys laughed." - "Why?" - "Because I cut out later than all ...".

Then Valya learned the details from the teacher. The group has been engaged in cutting for a long time, but Ksekka used scissors to "cut" haphazardly, as she pleases, before kindergarten. And here she is behind.

When Lyudmila Pavlovna asked: "Who did not have time to cut out a circle?", the boys, pointing to the new one, yelled in unison: "Chibrova!" And she cried.

I probably I would be less hurt if I was accused of professional incompetence... After all, your child is the most unprotected part of your soul... Because of some primitive circles - and such suffering! Ksenka and I took up the endless cutting of circles, squares, stripes, napkins. Then she staged these activities with dolls. When one of them "lagged behind", she exhorted: "Don't cry, you'll still learn!" It probably made her feel better that someone else had fallen behind.

Ksenka for the first time in her life found herself in a non-family team, she had to somehow assert herself in it. But in the first weeks it was difficult for her to compete with those who went to kindergarten for more than a year. And this is what happened. Valentina was able to pick up Ksenka early that evening. Looking into the playroom, I saw: Ksenka and another girl were dancing around.

Lyudmila Pavlovna, noticing Valya, came up and said: "We wish your Ksenya a happy birthday." “That is, how?” Valya was surprised. “It won’t be long yet for her ...” “But she told us that today ...”

In one of the first "kindergarten" days, she saw how the next birthday girl was given drawings and sweets, they danced around her. Ksenia liked it so much that she thought about it several times and, apparently, got used to the idea of ​​how she would someday be congratulated too ... Don’t laugh anymore, but congratulate! .. She wanted it to happen faster. And today, when Lyudmila Pavlovna announced that it was Marina's birthday, she came up and quietly said: "Me too." And the round dance spun around both.

She had never cheated before. And now I don't feel cheated. She believed in a fictitious birthday, as once, looking at her dad, she believed that it was not dad, but a bear that did not let her out of the den ... Now she needed a round dance and friendly people directed at her at all costs. looks, and the mention of her name. So that at least for a while not to feel lagging behind.

How hard it must have been for her to feel unable to immediately stand on a par with everyone!.. Didn't I develop too much in her by my "sports activities" the conviction that it was shameful to be behind everyone?! But how to evaluate - "too" or not "too"? By what signs? After all, a person must be proud enough not to lose dignity, not to allow himself to be lazy ... Who can indicate the line beyond which pride becomes excessive?

I never found an answer to all these questions. There was once. It turned out that Ksonka was still lagging behind in drawing and sculpting, although she painted and sculpted all the time. I could not stand it and asked permission to modestly sit in a corner during at least one lesson. I was allowed.

Drawing Santa Claus. Lyudmila Pavlovna showed on the board what parts his figure consists of, taught him to determine the proportions. And then she walked "along the rows", as teachers do in the classroom, prompted: "Your hat is too big ... And you have a bag ..." "He has so many gifts," the one who depicted a big bag stubbornly. "But he can't be bigger than Santa Claus himself!" the teacher remarked sternly. "And Santa Claus will take him by car!" the boy continued. "You have to draw properly," Lyudmila Pavlovna stopped the argument. Then she showed the most successful drawings. Successfully, in her opinion, were drawn by those who most accurately copied her Santa Claus. "Can't kids dream up?" I asked her afterwards. "It is forbidden".

Lyudmila Pavlovna, with references to the methodology, explained why: otherwise the eye will not develop, there will not be a firm hand.

"And if everything develops, and the desire and ability to fantasize disappear?" “I don’t know,” she answered uncertainly. “But we don’t have a lesson on the development of fantasy. And so there is not enough time for the most necessary things ...”

When Ksenya and I were going home, in the hallway, on the table, I noticed clay figurines. "Our group sculpted," she said. Come closer. "And what did you blind?" - "Lisa". - "Where is yours?" Ksenka, running her eyes over the figures, was about to point to one, then to another, then, hesitating, to a third. She did not recognize her fox - all the figures were the same.

On the way, she told me about new girlfriends. Almost all of them "went" somewhere: to figure skating, to the pool, to a music school. “But, probably, this matters for their relationship,” I thought then. And he asked if she told her friends that she was studying English. "I sang to Marina in English, she didn't understand anything!" - laughs, satisfied. Yes, clearly. He knows only a few poems and songs, but it's already nice to brag. Of course it's not good, but it'll pass, I'm sure. Just acclimatizing to the new environment...

But the pool, curly skating and music school did not go out of my head. “Swimming is very important,” I thought. “It will harden, it will be stronger ... And skates ... Coordination of movements will develop ... And musical education is simply necessary! ..

Now she is the most receptive. Now I need to give her all this ... "The idea, having taken possession of me, became a material force: it made me run around the shops, go to the neighboring music school, "knock out" a subscription to the pool in the factory sports complex. And on Sundays by ten in the morning, hurry up with Ksenka In her "training corner" on the wall appeared "Reminder" - where to go, what day and hour, so as not to get confused.

We started language lessons even before we moved. Once I talked with Valya's friend Tatyana, an English teacher, about preschoolers who, as they say, can learn in months what takes years at school. And we decided we had to try. Vera Ivanovna and Maxim Petrovich reacted to our undertaking with coolness. But the first lessons gave amazing results: Ksenka almost immediately mastered the pronunciation. Playing with Tatyana with dolls, she repeated words and phrases after her, sang songs. Tatyana recorded poems and songs on a tape recorder. Now every morning Ksenka began with the sounds of Tatyana's voice. True, the further, the less willingly Ksenka listened to the tape recorder and no longer beamed with a friendly smile when Tatyana Ivanovna came. But Valya and I reassured ourselves: "Language lessons should become as much an everyday necessity as washing."

By the time of moving to a new apartment, five-year-old Ksenka already had some kind of vocabulary. "It's time to move on to reading," Tatyana said. And in the room on the wall appeared the Latin alphabet, a cloth "alphabet" with pockets, from which protruded cards with Latin letters, and on the desk - an English textbook.

Twice a week, Ksenka and Tatyana Ivanovna laid out words from cards on the floor, wrote on the blackboard, and on the rest of the days, frowning, wrote clumsy letters in notebooks, illustrating them with blots. With the arrival of Tatyana, her mood deteriorated more and more often. She twisted her words on purpose. Then Tatyana began to plant her toy next to her - an eared Mishka, who "tried very hard." Ksenka's interest in the language grew noticeably.

But not for long. Eared Mishka's efforts helped less and less. Ksenka only frowned, looking at him. Once Tatyana declared that he overtook Ksenka, and she, suddenly grabbing him by the head, began to pull him out of the hands of the teacher.

Valya, hearing the noise, ran from the kitchen into the room at the moment when the eared Mishka was bursting at the seams, not wanting to pass from one hand to another. Angry Tatyana did not let him go, Ksenka, bursting into tears, shouted: "He is bad, bad!"

Then in the kitchen, over tea, after putting Ksenka to bed, we talked about what had happened. "You need to practice while playing ..." - I argued. "But we've passed this stage," Tatiana assured me. "Now we're following the textbook..." - "How? ... There is no such methodology ... And then: the language requires perseverance, perseverance." "Maybe we should give her material in smaller portions?" - suggested Valya. “You can, of course,” Tatyana sighed. But you need to load according to your abilities, otherwise she will not learn how to overcome the difficult ... "

After the conversation, I really began to notice: my daughter is trying to avoid the difficult. Opening a children's book

"Ksenia, read it here." If the word is two syllables,