A little game of catch after school

Don't Cry, Poppa

Maceo learns the art of comedic timing and telling the entire joke.

I worked with Maceo after school to learn his first knock-knock joke.  Appreciating its sophisticated level of humor I'll save for another day.  After much repetition, Maceo understood his role in telling the joke and the expected responses to get to the punchline.  So, when Nick came home, it went something like this:


Maceo:  Poppa. Knock, kno---no, wait.  I say who's there. No, wait, I say 'knock-knock." And you say, "Who's there?"
(Me, to Maceo:  you say knock, knock).
Maceo: Knock, knock.
Nick:  um, who's there?
(Me, to Maceo: now say 'boo.')
Maceo:  I say "boo."
Nick: Boo who?
Maceo:  I'm all done.

It's  a work in progress.

Shady Playground redux

Friday, Nick got out of school early, so he was able to pick up both boys from their schools. Normally, during the volleyball season, Kate gets them. Nick got Cash first, and then went to Yu Ying for Mace. His first two weeks have gone surprisingly well. Not only have there been no tears, Maceo has even expressed that he likes the school! The one caveat is that his teachers, in the notes they send home with him each day, have said he pushes while in line. We've been talking to him about being nice and patient, and Friday, the notebook said he'd done well. We never get this much news from Maceo. From him, we get, "I played on the fire truck in the playground." "Who'd you play with?" we ask. "I don't know his name," he says. Anyway, we left Yu Ying and went to play at the Shady Playground. (Alert readers may recognize the name!) Before leaving school, Mace wanted to visit the bathroom. We went to one, but that one was under construction and thus scary. We went to another, but Mace wanted the other one further down the hall. Trying not to cramp his potty style, Nick complied. But upon entering the bathroom, Maceo wanted only to wash his hands. Soon after arriving at the playground, (you know what's coming), Maceo said, "I have to poop." So, he and Nick went over to the fence and the bushes and he pooped while Cash wandered around in the woodchips, falling only occasionally. After that, there was a lot of playing, and Cassius tried a brand new slide, much to both boys' delight. 

Ni hao

On Tuesday, September 2, 2014, Maceo joined the ranks of about 40 other pre-K3ers who had little clue that learning those small words, ni hao, was just the beginning of a grand, but in the spirit of honesty, occasional tear-filled adventure.

The night before school started, I had fits of insomnia and late-to-class frantic dreams.  Luckily Maceo picked up on none of the nervous energy that surrounds a first-born getting all sorts of big and grown up and slept like a rock and asked for pancakes for breakfast as if his parents, I mean, his entire world was not changing on this very day.

But, the first day of school came with the standard amount of stalling and harassing of Cassius that all other days bring so we took this as a good sign.  As eager parents, Nick and I both drive our cars to Yu Ying, the Chinese immersion charter school that we had the amazing fortune to get into after a harrowing and stressful spring researching schools in DC for Maceo.  We get there so damned early we have to kill about 20 minutes on the playground which seems to bother, well, no one in our party.

Maceo is cool and relaxed when it's time to enter and we head in, en masse, with the hordes of other eager parents and withholding-judgment-on-the-situation-preK3ers to find Maceo's cubby and classroom.  Maceo's confident where his room is as we had visited it at the open house the week before and we are greeted by Miss Mini, Maceo's lead teacher, and Ms. Zhang, the assistant teacher, whose enthusiasm toward all of their new pupils was so heartening as a parent new to, well, all of this.

Maceo immediately went for the trains and almost couldn't be bothered to say goodbye; I could not have received a more clear cue and was off the school grounds within 60 seconds, praying I did not just delude myself into thinking he was happy to be left.

But, it appears, he was happy to be left.  Or rather, there were no tears or accidents in his first 5 hours in preschool and thus we shall consider this day a success.  Ice cream rewards at Rita's for both mom and Maceo were enjoyed before we got home at which point Maceo passed out for two hours.

When asked if he wanted to go back tomorrow, he simply said "yes."  And so it was written.