Ben goes to school

Ok, I need to give Toby some PR as well, and say that he started second grade today. But for him, it is old hat already. He was up very early this morning and woke us up to tell us it was school day! He's been anticipating it for weeks (even though break was only about 5 weeks). Off he went, happy as a clam, back to his familiar school and the same teacher he had at the beginning of last year. Tonight, I asked him how it felt to be one of the "big kids" and he said "Oh man, it's great!".

But for Ben, today was very special. For about six months now, we've been pointing out his preschool as we drive by and saying "there's your friends" when we see the children outside. I took him two weeks ago to sign him up, then to buy fabric for his uniforms. The leader of our church (also a tailor) sewed them up, and when they arrived yesterday he couldn't wait to put them on. Every day lately, he's been saying "Is today the day?". This morning, we dressed him up (isn't he CUTE?) and he and I went off. It went pretty well, though i could see he felt very insecure because everyone was speaking to him in Portuguese. Every time the teachers spoke to him, he hid his face, and didn't seem to understand anything they said. He stayed very close to me all morning, though when I ducked out for an hour during snack time he seemed ok with that. I'll gradually decrease my time with him at school, and feel confident that eventually he'll do fine there. We dumped Toby in a Portuguese preschool in Portugal and he was miserable for months. We regret that to this day, so with Ben we've decided to be more gentle about it. We can't wait to hear our little Ben speaking fluent Portuguese, and able to interact with people here more easily. Please keep him in your prayers. - Cami