Decisions

As a mother, how do you know when something that is hard for you is really right for your child?  We've been here three weeks and although I'm loving these daily trips to the park and lazy afternoons watching Disney channel, I've felt like Alexandria needs more in her life.  She's a smart girl and she thrives when she's able to use her intelligence.

So I made a really hard decision.  I put her in school.  Japanese school.  Today was her first day.

If you know me you know I love having my kids home.  Part of me feels awful that she'll be missing out on family time and she may not get as much time with Papi.  Plus, waking up early is killing me!  (Not sure what we're going to do when Papi has home games.)  But, I feel like she needs this so I'm going to try to put my natural man tendencies aside and try to be a good mother for her.

It was hard for her when I told her I found a school.  There were tears, crocodile ones.  She wasn't really happy about not understanding ANYTHING.  But when I told her that she'll learn Kanji her whole attitude changed.  She couldn't sleep last night, anticipating the 7am alarm and her big day.

I was worried that the kids wouldn't accept her, that she would have no one to play with.  The school administrators let us know in their very broken English (that is still better than my Japanese but that's not saying much) that the teachers are on her side but I really wanted her to be able to connect with the students as well.

We bought her new school supplies: inside slippers, chopsticks, a lunch mat, etc. to prepare her for Japanese school.

Our day started early.  We rode the bike to the bridge parked the bike and walked across the bridge to school.

(This picture was taken on the bridge.  The school is the building with the medallion looking thing on it.)

We saw all the hundreds of Japanese school kids with their huge backpacks and bags and little yellow hats.

"Do you want a backpack like theirs?" I asked her.  "They look nice."

She grinned and glared at me.  Obviously a "no".

"Maybe one of those cute little hats?" I continued.  "They said you don't have to wear one but if you want to we can get you one."

"NO," was her definitive answer.

As we waited outside to be taken to her classroom some Japanese students would walk by and stare but most bowed and smiled.  That was cute, so polite.

Her teacher came and gestured with a kind smile to walk her into the school.  We changed our shoes into our inside slippers then walked up to her classroom.  The teacher had us wait in the hallway while she told the class that there was a new student.  When the teacher presented Alexandria to the class they were all super excited.  "Kawai-i" they all said and wanted to feel her hair.  The teacher had them repeat her name, "Al-exa-ndo-rr-ia".  My little girl was nervous but I said bye and prayed that she would have a good day.

It was a long day for this momma.  I kept looking at my cell phone, 4 more hours, 3.5 more hours, 3.25 more hours . . . Finally, it was time to go get her.  I rode my bike to the bridge, parked the bike, walked across the bridge and waited outside the school.  Little yellow hatted children soon started trickling out of the gates all of them with a backpack and a bag and a bunch of little bags hanging off their big bags.  Then a group of 15 little 3rd grade girls all holding hands came running out.  Guess who was in the middle.

"Mom!  She lives in the same apartment building as us!"  She excitedly pointed to the little girl on her right side.  We lost some of the girls before we took the picture since I waited until we were out of the school area before breaking out the camera. I walked across the bridge with the girls, Alexandria still hand in hand with her new friends.  When I went to get the bike I noticed Alexandria was a little hesitant.

"Do you want to walk home with the girls?"  I asked.

"Yea!"  She smiled, happy to have found her place in their world.

And now she's even thinking those backpacks look pretty nice and a little yellow hat might be fun too.


So  . . . it was a hard decision but it really seems that we made the right decision.

Now about the early mornings . . .


(By the way, "kawai-i" means cute.)