Our kids started school!  For our older three, Tuesday was the start of the new school year.  Instead of riding the school bus up to the temporary school, they are in the nearby school that has been fixed up after being damaged in the tsunami.  They are glad for an extra fifteen minutes of sleep or play in the mornings.  All of them have the same teachers — for some reason this seems to be the school’s strategy this year.  So far they all seem to be welling back at school…

 

And then our youngest — it has been a big week!  Yesterday he started youchien, or Japanese preschool.  A very big deal in Japan, and for our family!

 

A few days before starting, I was trying to figure out how to help prepare Ian for the fact that this little boy who doesn’t know much Japanese was about to enter a Japanese world.  So I told him he will be a spy kid.  His teacher will say a lot of stuff in Japanese that he doesn’t understand, but he can be a spy, and investigate to figure it out… but looking around and seeing what all the kids around him are doing, and copying them.  He was pretty excited about this…

Last night as he sat on my lap and we debriefed his first day,  my little spy confessed:  “Mommy, I was really scared before I left today, but I didn’t tell you.”

This morning he had to ride the cute little yellow school bus – ALL BY HIMSELF.  As we were holding hands waiting for the bus to come, he looked up and and asked, “So Mommy, are you coming with me on the bus?”

“… so will you drive your car and meet me at the youchien?”

Once again… no.

Me:  “How about if I pray for you before the bus comes?”

Ian: “No, no Mommy.  Not now.  Wait until I get to the school, and THEN start praying.”

Thankfully, he left happy, and came home happy.  It was perhaps the spy’s mother who shed a few tears….