First Day of School

Tennyson has been asking us for many days, "Do I start school tomorrow?"  Well, tomorrow finally arrived and today was the big day.  Tennyson insisted on picking out his own outfit, and he went straight for the "rocker shirt."

It was mostly a big deal for his parents.  Allow us to describe the feeling that parents get when they drop off their child at Chinese immersion school for the first time:  "Oh crap!"  No, really.  When we walked in the door for the first time, suddenly all of these kind but completely Chinese teachers started speaking to him and us in Chinese (no English is allowed from day one), and we realized we had no idea what they were saying.  And then we realized Tennyson had no idea what they were saying.  And then we realized Tennyson would be spending the whole day with these people, and then five days a week for then next nine months, and then.....  YIKES!

But Tenny was just excited to be a big boy attending his big (and brand new) school, to have his very own locker, and to hang out with kids his age.  Daddy was reluctant to leave, Suzy cried (no really), and Tennyson didn't even notice we were leaving because he was too busy playing with one of his new teachers.

Thoughts after day one:  so far so good.  Tennyson spent most of the evening chasing us around the house with a red oven mitt, and every time he hit us with it yelling "hongse! hongse!," which apparently means "red" in Chinese.  We assume his homework wasn't to hit his parents with red objects, but there's really no way for us to find out.  Then when we asked Tenny what he learned in school today, he broke out in song:  "honkinisho pah pah," after which he added:  "or some silly Chinese song like that."

We really hope Tennyson keeps having fun and acting like this is no big deal - it's about the only thing keeping his parents from freaking out right now.