They don't speak English in Kazakhstan

It's finally here. That great day when your little tyke heads out the door for his first FULL day of school! Whohoo!! Okay, he's almost 7 but that makes the accomplishment that much more significant somehow.

He was so excited about his new Transformers backpack! Things he wanted to take to school: college-ruled notebook, large picture of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, and (of course) Richard Scarry's Best Word Book. Funny.

What with 5 whole minutes to explain to the teacher who Nathan is and what his background is like...well, we are praying for the best.

His new teacher asked where Nate was skill-wise since, as she pointed out, the other kids are reading and writing complex words and sentences. Uh...  I told her that he can say the alphabet (go Nathan!) but that he doesn't yet recognize the letters. We were looking at a large banner on the classroom wall that had lowercase letters on it, and she said "So, he knows uppercase letters but not the lowercase ones?"...uh, no.  Did I forget to mention that they don't speak English in Kazakhstan?

Can you read this??