Our 3 year old has started Preschool this week. She was so excited about going for the past week that we used Preschool as a tool for repremanding her now. “You won’t be able to go to school if you don’t listen…” It’s been working very well.
So she took off this past Tuesday, with her uniform hat, badge, princess lunch bag and back pack my grandmother made for her. Very excited that she was going with daddy. Although we were half an hour late, I had to stop and take pictures. 🙂
I was so happy that she actually made the school year. She couldn’t go if she wasn’t properly potty trained. Loads of photo’s and excitement later. I was FREE! No kid to watch all day. Wow… This was an exciting day. Or was it?
I’ve decided to occupy my time by working at my cousins restaurant. The extra cash & awesome Japanese lunches they give us was a plus too. I’ve never waited tables before, but it’s not too bad. I’m such a slow pace person, I have to get used to the fast paced 3 hours. I’ll get a hang of it I hope… It was so busy, from time in to time out, I didn’t even get a chance to think of what Zu was doing.
After work it’s time to pick up the munchkin. This preschool is 10 miles away from my cousins restaurant. A lot of driving… (Is it worth it?) Any who, on the way there on my 30 min. drive, it dawned on me. It’s such a strange feeling to be this far from my child, and on top of that this is the first time that I have no idea what she’s been doing! Did she eat all of her lunch, did she get to the bathroom OK, is she getting along with others, is she lonely without me…? I don’t know if I can get used to this.
Now I have to depend on what Zu tells me and the one sentence the teacher writes on a little piece of paper, “She played house and didn’t cry even though it was her first day.” That’s it!? Who did she play with? Was she alone? Did she make friends? Was she listening to the teachers? Was she ALL BY HER SELF!? Alone???
Her lunch box was empty and she seemed fine. Did she really eat all the food or did they dump what was left over, or did she spill all her food, or did some other kid eat her lunch? I don’t know if I like not knowing…
I asked her how school was and she seems to not remember anything… This really sucks.
Obentou
Day #2
New bento (lunch), and off she goes.
I guess this time letting go was hard for Zu and daddy. Daddy was dropping her off with the teacher, she grabbed on and didn’t want to let go. “Don’t go daddy. (sob)” Teacher tears her away and daddy bolts away without looking back. He said it was very sad. Poor daddy…
So, my 2nd day at work. Busier than before, it was over in a flash! Grab my bento from the chef, and off to pick up the Zu-meister. This day was “Everybody get in my way and drive super super slow day.” It took me 35 min. to get there. (IS it worth it?)
I walk in, she sees me, runs to me, “MAMA!” All smiles, seconds later, crying. “I want to go on the bus with my friends!” There’s a school bus for this preschool, but it costs more to put her on the bus, and it doesn’t stop anywhere near our side of town so we are not using it. I tell her, “If you go on the bus, you can’t go home with mama.” She sais, “I want to go on the bus with you… (sob)” I say, “That bus is for little people and not for mama’s.” She stops crying and just starts walking towards the car.
Buckled in with her snack in hand, we are off. Bus passes by, and cue the water works. “My friends are leaving me~!!” A minute of crying and 2 minutes later, “I LOVE MAMA, DADDY, AND OTIS, AND SIMON, AND I MISSED YOU! YOU WERE WITHOUT ME!!” Niagara Falls. Poor baby, she was so tired and lonely she just couldn’t controll herself anymore. I had to stop the car and calm her down. 2 minutes later, she passed out. Poor thing… I was so sad, I thought maybe we can wait a little longer for her to go to school? She doesn’t really have to go yet. Preschool is not a requirement…
But then I remembered why she’s going to that preschool that is 30 minutes from our house and is a full day. It’s for her language skills, mainly. This is a Japanese speaking preschool. A full day of playing and communicating in Japanese. We thought it was important for her to grow up knowing 2 languages. I’ve been raising her speaking only Japanese to her, and her daddy only speaking English to her. Living in the US, surrounded by English most of the time, you start losing the secondary language. She was actually starting to lose some of her Japanese recently, so I really wanted her to go to a Japanese speaking school to be able to keep her heritage.
It was the same for me, my parents spoke Japanese, but I learned English anyway because we lived in the States. Eventually we moved to Japan and I learned the language very quickly after we moved, but Zu may never live in Japan. We’ll visit, but living there may never happen.
They say that if a child learns a 2nd language (conversational) perfectly by the age of 7, they will carry that with them forever. I really am counting on this. So up till the point that she goes on to 1st grade, I am going to try very hard for her to learn Japanese. It is very important for her to learn Japanese now, at her age, or she may lose it forever.
Well, hopefully she will do better next week. I’m sure it has a lot getting used to for her and for us. This is a big step, and a good one. Everything will work out at the end, I know it.
cocoyo 