First Week of the School Year

Last week was a busy week of transition.  On Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, Max started his first day at his new day care at El Centro de la Raza.  It's a bilingual English/Spanish daycare.  Before his first day, we brought him in twice to visit so that it wouldn't be such a culture shock for him.  He had a fairly smooth first week.  His teachers commented that Max knew just what to do when it came time to eat or sleep.  He was only fussy after drop off but then would be happy the rest of the day.  I guess Max is a day care veteran now that he's at his third daycare in less than two years.  I always feel a pang of guilt whenever I put him through a new transition but I also have to remind myself that kids are incredibly resilient and sometimes these transitions are harder on the parents than the children.

On Wednesday, Jalen started kindergarten at Beacon Hill International School.  The morning was pretty hectic where all the parents crowded in the class room with their iPhones and digital SLRs snapping away photos like the paparazzi.  There are 3 kindergarten classes and they're all in a big open room with bookshelves and easels as dividers.  It must have been pretty overwhelming for Jalen. When the class bell rang and all the parents were being ushered out of the class so we had to say good bye to Jalen, he quietly shed a couple of tears.  But he just bravely wiped them away and tearfully said good bye.  Initially, Jalen was assigned to the all day English kindergarten program.  We had hoped that he would be in the Mandarin immersion program but since we moved in May and kindergarten registration happens in March, we ended up as #3 on the wait list.  Then on Wednesday afternoon we got the call from the principal and received the news that Jalen is IN for Mandarin immersion.  So from Thursday on, he gets English and social studies in the morning then after lunch he goes to Mandarin immersion where he learns math and science in Chinese.  After he got home on Thursday, I asked him if he learned any new Chinese words.  He said he learned a lot of Chinese words but he doesn't remember any of them.  Haha.  We just need to be patient as I'm sure he'll pick it up in no time.  I'm so excited that Jalen will be learning Chinese consistently.  I better brush up my Mandarin as well so I can start speaking to him in Mandarin at home more.

So now we face a brand new world of bilingual education (can you imagine when Max starts speaking Spanish?) and public school education.  Next week there's a kindergarten potluck where the parents can meet each other.  Then later in September we have our first PTA meeting.  I'm trying not to think too much about it so that I don't get overwhelmed.  It just seems that there's always new transitions so I just need to start accepting change as the norm.