amado’s first day of school

I know many of you have been wondering, so here is the update, written by jason who dropped him off.


I'm shooting this out as a quick update of Amado's drop off. It was reallyeasy (good work mami on all the prep). It went so smoothly in fact that I semi-left and came back to check after I had already said goodbye because I felt like I looked bad with the other parents, some of whom were still hanging around, or with Amado because other parents had stayed.

The process there in the morning is really conducive to leaving easily. When kids are arriving (9:00-9:15) they hang out outside and ride bikes or play with plays or whatever. There was a patineta that he grabbed immediately, and truth be told, I could have left right then. Instead I let him play, and when talking to another parent found out that the normal process is that they play until all the kids are there, then Ada rings a bell. Then they put their toys in their place, all line up on a bench, and then go inside. After they take off their shoes they have some circle time
where they hang out in a circle, sing buenos dias to everyone, and sing some other songs. After that is some kind of art time, and then free play, then snacks, etc, etc.

The other parent told be that usually parents break out at the bell, so I told Amado that that's what was going to happen. He said "si", then when they rang the bell I told him adios, te quiero mucho, que juegues mucho, y que hay que compartir bien con los otros niños. He said "si" gave me the beso y abrazo y ya... He didn't immediately get the line up thing, in part because most of the kids just sort of milled around and Ada had changed the lining up place, so part of what he did was help himself to toys that other kids had vacated. I helped him find where he was going, hung around and then said goodbye again. In the process I got to see a nice interaction two of the kids where one girl, Nadia, didn't want her mom to leave, and another girl, Sofia, came up to her to ask, "Nadia, quieres venir a jugar conmigo?" with the clear intent of helping her make an easier transition. I ducked out for a couple minutes, then ducked back in. They were in a circle singing, Amado was hanging out watching, with power saw in hand (his favorite toy so far) which he had clear gone immediately to grab, once he had his shoes off. He was playing it mellow, I think in part because another kid was having a really hard time crying and wouldn't let his mom leave. Most of the kids were going nuts singing with feather boas and maracas jumping and dancing around, and Amado running his motocierra. When song time ended, one kid a brought a birds nest to show them, so I said goodbye for the third time, repeated everything I had previously said. Amado was patient every time, always gave me el beso y abrazo, he walked really close to get a good look at the nido, and I bounced.

The one other part that's worth saying is that we drove up, and will drive up every day with Maya. He was really juiced about picking her up. And it's clearly a treat to have two car seats in the car, etc. When she first got in the car, I felt compelled to get the conversation going. Pregunté a Maya que comió para el desayuno. Respondió que no se acordó. But really it wasn't necessary. The two of them started talking pretty much right off. It wasn't perfect. To Maya, some of Amado's words weren't all the way clear. But the reality is that he can't really always talk to other little kids, because they won't understand him at all. With Maya he could, and he definitely could understand what she said. Seeing that made it clear that this is going to be really good for him. It's not at all that he walks through life without being understood or anything, but he now is developing a whole crew of friends that he can communicate with a lot easier. I think he will like that.

Anyway, that's it for now.
Peace,
Jason