Carson's First Day Of School!

Carson was ready to go to school!

Today was Carson's first day at his new bilingual pre-school. The classroom is mixed with children who speak French and English. He has two teachers, one who only speaks English and the other only speaks French. So, some of the activities and circles will be in English and the rest are in French. He was so excited to start, he's been talking about it for weeks. We'd visited the school before our trip home and he remembered playing on their slide. He was so excited that he decided not to sleep last night. We put him to bed at 9pm and he was up again at 11pm. I had the pleasure of entertaining him till 3:30am when he finally decided to hit the hay. Gotta love jet lag... He woke up this morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to go to school! When we got to his classroom the teachers explained that they didn't want to overwhelm Carson on his first day in his new classroom. They gave me the option to stay in the classroom to make him feel comfortable. I laughed on the inside. Any of you who have met Carson knows that he is not shy nor is he timid. I have dropped him off at plenty of unfamiliar places and sometimes I don't even get a goodbye! I explained to the teachers that I didn't think he would have a problem and that I'd tell him goodbye and if he got upset then I'd stay.

Conversation:
Me: "Carson Mommy is going to go now." Carson: "You gonna ride the train?"

Me: "No, not yet. I'm going to wait for you to ride the train with me. I'm just going to go on a walk." Carson: "OK Momma...bye! Go home now, I slide."

That was that. The teachers asked me to come back in one hour to take him home. He was only going to stay one hour out of the three....again so he would not feel overwhelmed. I guess it's their process to acclimate a child to a new situation but definitely is not needed for my child. When I came back after an hour he was busy playing and they told me he had done great and was a very happy child (French code for loud). When I told him we needed to go he began to cry. Thinking they would tell me he could stay because A. he was not overwhelmed and B. he was upset at the fact that he had to leave and the other kids got the stay. That didn't happen though, they still wanted him only to stay for an hour. *sigh* Thursday he gets to stay 2 hours and Friday will be his first full day. He will go to school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 1-4. I'm so happy that he gets to get out of the apartment and play with other children. I'm also happy for myself to get to do some exploring and take in a museum or two on my own!