Kaitlyn was so excited this morning she couldn’t even sit down to eat the piece of bread she’d finally agreed to for her breakfast. She got up without fussing, put on her new pink (of course) dress, new Hello Kitty sneakers, and had me put a ribbon in her hair. Today was the first day of school. And Kaitlyn couldn’t wait to start in the big kid class. Grande section. That isn’t to say she wasn’t nervous. Another American girl who’s a few years older told Kaitlyn what to expect in Grande: learn to count to 100, do mazes and dot-to-dots. Kaitlyn couldn’t sleep last night for fear she’d connect the wrong dots. Despite the looming dot demand, she was in the car five minutes early.
We were among the first to arrive at school. Normally, only parents of the very littlist kids get to walk to the classrooms; today was different. Parents are given two hours this morning to take their kids to school. And they did. (No, Bill did not. And he was not the only CAT-dad to be in the office instead of on the playground.) Kaitlyn said hello to some of her friends, then marched up to her new teacher and said without me prompting her: Bonjour, maitress. (That’s literally hello, teacher. ) The woman smiled and said bonjour, Kaitlyn (I think everyone at the school knows Kaitlyn) and then asked her comment vas tu? No answer. Ca va bien? No answer. So much for her French. I tried to tell the teacher that I think she understands a lot more than she says.
We went inside the classroom to check it out. Kaitlyn’s class is a mixture of the Grande Section… or kindergarten… and CP…. or first grade. The kids in CP have desks with their names on them. The others sit at little round tables in the back of the room. It could turn out to be a good transition for Kaitlyn from pre-school with the hours of finger painting and play doh and dollies to a real classroom with real work. She won’t have homework this year, but she’ll see what it’s like to be an even bigger kid.
When I picked Kaitlyn up for lunch, one of the other moms was wiping away tears, saying how hard it is to take the kids to school. I was thinking how hard it was to have to drop everything to rush to the school to pick mine up for lunch. Don’t get me wrong, I like spending that time with her. But it still just doesn’t make sense to me. Anyway, the teary mom’s kid cried when she left him in Kaitlyn’s class this morning. Hhhmmm…
When we finished up lunch and we were about to head back to school, I asked Kaitlyn if she needed to go to the bathroom. Mom! They have toilettes at school. She must think I’m a real moron. She went on to inform me that now she uses the big kid toilette. As long as she uses it, that’s fine with me.
On the way back to school, Kaitlyn and one of her friends ran ahead of we mom’s… into the school yard on their own… without even saying bye. They’re so grown up.
At the end of the day, I asked Kaitlyn’s teacher elle va bien? (basically, she did well?) The teacher smiled and said bien! Sounds good to me. Sounds promising for a good year.
Sounds like a great start, indeed. May that enthusiasm for learning continue for the next sixteen years.