(Going to his first day of school with his lunch bag that he decorated.)
Enzo is now officially a student. He is now enrolled at Tami's bilingual preschool and had his first day last Friday. We all went to drop him off, wish him a good day, and say good bye. It was not at all a traumatic experience for The Kid; he's been there many times before with his mom. But this time he had his own cubby for his stuff and learned to put his things there and to put his lunch with the other lunches. That was new for him. Then, he just walked away from us that morning and sat down to a play dough station. We had already said bye but keep taking pictures and watching. Then we had to go say bye one more time. Tami and I both left out the front door.
(Off to the play dough after we said good bye in the morning.)
If I could have, I would have been tempted to stay much longer. Tami says on the long side there are parents who have stayed an hour on the first day before. I went to work, and so did Tami. Tami's work was in the office next door to Enzo's class but she kept herself hidden the whole day until pick up time. When she wanted to, she could peek through an office door that opened directly into Enzo's class. Enzo did great. He is officially a student with a day of school behind him. Now, I expect to have to work even harder to keep up with his Spanish. Tami speaks to the kids in Spanish and I get to hear some of it but now he'll be a couple of days each week picking up on more words that haven't come up around me yet. As it is, English or Spanish, he continues to add words every day. On several occasions Tami and I have asked each other where he learned a word from and found out that neither of us knows.
(Showing off the ball he made with dough when we went back to say good bye a second time.)
Enzo has good manners. He says gracias often when he is given something and this weekend he said "thank you Papi" when I got him the water he was asking for. I remember wondering how he would learn when Tami would say "gracias Papi" for him after I gave him something. I thought there was no way he would understand that these words are for him to say. But it worked. I thought he would have to be taught everything explicitly but it turns out everything is learned from our modeling. So now it is simultaneously the easiest thing and a challenge to teach him anything in the near future; I just need to be a good example.
We play catch often now. We play up close and with a larger 8 inch or so diameter ball. I had been wondered how long it would take for him to catch as kicking accurately became so easy for him. Catching is such a complex activity. Everything we do is, really. We humans are simply amazing. Well, he has figured out how to catch a ball thrown close up. I'm not sure how long the progression takes but he did get a baseball glove for Christmas so I imagine we'll be playing catch with a regular baseball outside before too long.
Enzo also likes for me to sing the ABCs to him. We started doing that every night recently as pat of our reading before bed. He really likes it. But I never told him it was called the ABCs, I just sang the song. So I think it is interesting that he started asking at night "ABC?" when he wants me to sing. Again, I just can't account for where he learns all of the words or phrases he picks up. I finally have him convinced that the letter A is the letter A. I was wondering if he was going to start first grade some day thinking the alphabet was "Oakland-B-C-D, E-F-G.." He would see an A somewhere and point and say "Oakland!" Now, with an ABC book I've been able to show him E for Enzo and A for Ana. Thankfully someone he cares about has an A for a first initial or I'm not sure how I would have gotten him this far.
He is smart and beautiful. He is a genius. Not at the exclusion of your kid or anyone else's, dear reader. It is just that it is simply amazing what small children can do. It's amazing what we can do, for that matter. They smile, snuggle, laugh, crawl around you and every obstacle when you try to block them then forget their frustration and laugh with you when you are amused with their creativity, learn to get pieces of toys to fit together, rest gently up against you when they are sleepy, learn to walk and push a chair to get what is on a higher shelf. We sit and appreciate the ocean, drive a car without thinking about it, and contemplate the abstract concept of numbers and the shape of space in our universe. At some point they become us.
It's pretty neat being a human.