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.