Honeymoon is Over

Yesterday was New Student Orientation and John's first day of work. We all went to the school for orientation. Brendan and Abbie had about 45 minutes with their teacher, touring the school and doing a small activity, while John and I listened to the President and Principal speak. After the speakers, we had a Parents' Association Tea/Coffee. Meanwhile, C.J. had been checked into the Secondary School intro program which consisted of 4 hours of meeting his tutor, touring the campus, taking a language test for German, French, and Spanish proficiency, eating lunch with the new kids in his grade, and playing some "get to know you" activities.

John and I left the event very excited. We loved the President's message which went along the lines of "Don't expect this school to be like the one you left. Everything we do here, we have chosen to do for a reason. We don't have any constraints and can design what we feel is the ideal education environment." It's nice to have the company footing the bill for a school with no "constraints" -- much different from the message we hear in California each day. We were also thrilled that someone from the Learning Support group sought us out. She's reviewed Brendan's file and will be pulling him for intervention help during the time the rest of the class gets German. While Brendan is disappointed not to learn German (we'll look for after school lessons), we are grateful that he won't have to miss instructional time. She'll be using the Wilson program which is very similar to the Barton program we used privately back home.

C.J. left the day absolutely exhausted. He spoke very little, fell asleep before dinner, and complained of stomach cramps and dizziness throughout the night. I think the poor guy has realized that the vacation is over. It's scary enough transitioning from elementary school to middle school, but C.J. has to do it in a foreign country with all new students. The good news is that kids at this school have all recently been the "new" kid and rumor has it that they are very quick to adopt the new kids into their friendship circles. The school fosters these relationships by doing a lot of team building activities in the first few weeks of school. I'm sure he'll quickly make friends and his nerves will calm. The surprise to me about C.J.'s schedule is that it is different every day of the week. It must be a private school thing, as John said his schedule in high school was the same way. This way, the school can offer more subjects than the number of periods in each day. Even though C.J. has different teachers for all his classes, he is assigned a primary 'tutor' who will take charge of his schedule and have regular contact with C.J. to see how he is doing.

Brendan seemed fine yesterday, but has spent a good portion of this morning in tears. He is worried about making friends, not being able to take German, and having too much homework. I have asked him to not worry about it until he starts school and sees what it is like, but I know that is advice that I have a hard time following myself. There is one girl who wants to be his friend (I went out with the mother yesterday), but Brendan doesn't consider girls to be friend-eligible. Hopefully, the school will teach him to be less picky. Unfortunately, he has already learned that his class has more girls than boys.

Abbie is the only one who seems to skipping along without a care in the world. She was a bit shy to meet her teacher yesterday, but by the time the 45 minutes were up, she was clinging to the teacher just like she did to Mrs. Campos back at home. Abbie and I met a girl from her class, her old sister (in Brendan's class), and her mother for a playdate at the swim club yesterday afternoon. Abbie is already excited about future playdates. Her new friend has lived in Singapore since birth, but her family is actually from New Zealand -- the parents have just been expats for the past 10 years! She also played with a girl from South London and some kids from Denmark.

As many of you could predict, I signed up for quite a few Parents' Association volunteer activities. It looks like I will be a Class Parent for Abbie and a backup for Brendan. I'll also be helping with the book fairs and the Halloween party. I expressed an interest in joining the dog walking club and the book club as well as starting a dinner/cooking club and a couple's poker group. I figured the school will be a big source of friends for us, so I might as well jump in with both feet.

Tomorrow will be strange as I say goodbye to the kids at the school bus stop and John at the train stop. I'm sure if I were home, I'd be having lunch with friends to celebrate. Instead, I'm hoping to organize the temporary apartment a bit, hit the grocery store, and maybe do a little other shopping. Fortunately, the school is having a Parents' Association Welcome (Back) Coffee at 2pm, so I will have some socializing to anticipate.