An Education

So far, so good. Littleboy 1 loves school.

He's still the first up the schoolbus steps in the morning; still reports that school was 'great' when he climbs back down the steps at 3pm. I have had just one call from the school nurse's office so far (he fell off the monkeybars, luckily uninjured), which, considering the number of daily incidents in our household requiring first aid, is doing quite well. I am still waiting for the day when all is not quite so great, but thus far, the excitement has yet to wear off.

It helps that his teacher seems delightful. On the first day, after a lot of persuasion I got him to describe the day at school and was slightly surprised when he came to "And then, my teacher got out her violin and played it". It was only a few days later that I met a woman I know in the supermarket and mentioned the name of his teacher. "Oh, she's lovely," she said. "She plays the guitar and sings to them."

He's already come home with some new phrases. "It's your choice," he likes to tell me constantly. "Are you going to let me play the computer now, or later?" (Notice how the choice works entirely in his favour...). An awful lot of things are 'awesome' - a word he used a little bit before (such as the infamous time he told us that Rite-Aid was an 'awesome' shop), but he's definitely using it more now. And he's learned a new song, which he loves - the one about the peanut sitting on a railway track, and being turned into peanut butter (pronounced 'budda' in a very American accent).

I haven't yet discovered whether he knows how to Pledge Allegiance to the US flag (something that I can see is on the New York State Kindergarten curriculum). We asked him about this last night, and he mentioned that they had 'done a song about the red, white and blue' - however, he couldn't remember it and wondered if we could sing it. Unsurprisingly, we couldn't.

Littleboy 2, meanwhile, has started back at preschool, which is just as well, considering he spent the days when his brother was at school and he at home in a completely foul temper. Every morning as his brother left with me for the bus, he would eat his breakfast stony-faced looking more and more furious - one day running out into the street in his pyjamas, luckily chased by The Doctor, to follow us. It's hard for him, seeing his brother go off in the all-exciting bus, and I dread to think what will happen next year when the little girl next door (whom they both adore) starts Kindergarten too.

Still, his return to preschool seems to have prompted some searching questions of an educational nature. "Mummy, what's inside the sun?" he asked the other day, curled up in bed early in the morning. "Err......" I said, before mumbling something off the top of my head about lava. I realised I have absolutely no idea, physics not having been my top subject at school and the question having never occurred to airy-fairy Arts-graduate me. (The Doctor later told me it is hydrogen and helium). I've also had questions about why cars can go uphill, to which I honestly have no sensible answer.

I can see this is the start of a long Education for me......