Back to school

The twins started school today. Well, they've already been in school for the last year but this is a new school. A school we thought would be better for them because it is a Christian kindergarten and because it comes highly recommended. Of course we knew that there would be adjustment on their part. Evan was weeping and constantly looking out for me and even though Jordan seemed to be more self-sufficient, she clung onto me me the rest of the day and that in itself told of her uncertainties.




















What I was unprepared for however was the adjustment it was for us. We'd moved from a playschool where there was one class of each level in a big bungalow down the road from where the grandparents lived. At that school, all the teachers chipped in to help and because of that, all the teachers knew the twins and we knew all the teachers. But this new school was an institution. It was big, impersonal, there were hallways, big halls and the children had to be in rows while they waited.

Part of me thinks it's okay that they wait, that it's okay that they sit in rows and be lost in the crowd. That they learn order, a little bit of routine and regimen and some abiding of rules. But part of me has a shattered heart seeing my 2 1/2 year olds looking dazed in a big hall, trying to concentrate on the only thing familiar, which was a Vegetales video that was being played to distract the attention of the 60-80 or so children waiting to be put on school buses. And that part of me, seems unfortunately or fortunately, the larger part of me.

It is that same part of me that hates that even though there were only 7 children in the twins class and there were 3 teachers, it seemed like my children were left to their own devices. It made me wonder whether it really was worth the angst and trauma to take them out of their comfy setting at their previous school to dump them into this huge kindergarten that while being reputable seemed to run with as much soul as a disinfectant producing factory.

At the same time, there is Little Miss Logic inside me that thinks that maybe it's just an adjustment period for us, the parents as it will be for the children. But at the end of this first day, I'm weepy thinking about sending them back there tomorrow and the day after and I don't know how I am going to pull that brave front and get them there despite the tears that are guaranteed to appear, especially from my doe-eyed little boy.

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