Back to school orientation..

Today morning was Sean’s back to school orientation day. I almost missed it thinking it was in the evening from 3-6pm. Luckily on my way to work I thought of reading what the letter from the school said and that’s when I realized it was from 8-10am. So I turned around and got back home around 7:15 and Sean was still soundly asleep. I didn’t want to wake him up but finally around 7:30 I just had to, since I had a 10:30am meeting at work and couldn’t run late. He was pretty good about it and I got him to drink milk and got him ready and we were out of the door by 7:45. Mummy took some pictures of him before we left since they wouldn’t be here for his first official day back at school. It was pouring rain but we managed to get to the car without getting drenched.

We got there right on time at 8am. He was a bit shy when he saw his principal Mrs Amiri but managed a quick Hi. We then proceeded to his class which is ‘Class C’. There was one other kid – Emily, with her mom and we met his teachers – Ms Poncho, Ms Jain and Ms Kristen. There will be 29 children from ages 3-6 in his class and almost 11 of them are his age group. We checked out his cubby. His number is 5 and also signed up for Snack day for Sep 6. It will be Sean’s turn to get snack for the class which will be Bagels and cream cheese. We learnt that in this class Sean will have to help himself during snack time. Hopefully he will eat something and not be too engrossed in some activity and forget. I also showed him around the class and he got a quick glance of all the activities they have there. He was happy that they have lots of books and was also interested in the globe and miniature animals along with the Barn and Farm set. He was reminded of the tour of Kreider farms we made this summer. He also checked out the bathroom they have in class. He is returning to class for the first time after getting potty trained this summer. Sean seemed happy and eager to get back to his school routine and that was a big relief for me. I know it might take him a few days to get used to all his new class mates and teachers but he has 4-5 of his friends from the toddler class here with him, that always helps.

We said our good byes to his teachers and when we got near his toddler class he saw his teacher from the toddler class, Ms Young. I asked him if he wanted to say hi to her and he wanted me to go with him. As soon as he saw her he ran to her and jumped into her arms. She carried him and gave him a kiss and was so happy to see him. He was delighted too. He was delighted too. Ms Young has been a huge influence on him the past year and I thanked her for all her help. He was in her good books from the time he joined and he was genuinely happy to see her. When I asked him which class he will be going back on Tuesday he pointed the toddler class to me. I showed him his new class once again and explained to him and he was fine with that.

On our way out, we passed the receptionist Ms Mariam and she was also happy to see Sean back after 2 months, she said,

Sean, you’ve become a big boy!!!

To which Sean’s reply was,

Yeah, I pee in the potty and I’m going to be an astronaut!

It was so funny esp the fact that he equates ‘big boy’ to ‘being potty trained’ and ‘becoming an astronaut’ because we tell him that he has to be older to become an astronaut. It definitely was a revelation that he does pay attention to all the nitty gritty details of our conversations with him.