Today Scott has his first day at school. There is a small private kindergarten located in our compound, and now Scott is old enough to join the classes. In total there are 11 kids (all toddlers), with 2 teachers and 2 ayi’s.

Scott was very happy to go to school, although it was a bit of a disappointment for him that he had to walk instead of going by school bus. Every day all the school buses pick up the kids for the international schools at our compound and he always likes to watch them. Although Scott was excited at first, when he arrived at the kindergarten he suddenly got second thoughts and he did not want to go in. So I held him on my shoulder for a while so he could look around from a safe position. Each time I wanted to put him down he started crying and did not want to let go.

Eventually I sat down with him in the back of the class room when he suddenly started smiling and walked up to the other kids. He was still a bit reluctant to play with them but he was not afraid anymore. He quickly found his own play castle and observed the others from there. Just before my wife and I left he started interacting more with two other kids and he did not even realize that we left the class room. I hope he will have a good day today, it feels very strange to leave your little boy to other people and not knowing what he is doing.

I noted that out of 11 kids only 4 showed up today. The reason is that most flew back to China over the weekend from all over the world and they all are still jet lagged. Some others are still outside China on vacation and won’t start until next week. Probably not bad for Scott, he won’t be as overwhelmed with just 4 kids and 4 staff. I look forward to seeing him tonight, too bad he can’t tell us all his stories yet.