Emma's First Day of Preschool

FINALLY...the day arrived for Emma to go to preschool! She has been so anxious for this new experience to begin that it made for a very long morning as we had to constantly tell her we could not go to school until after lunch. The hours never went so slowly for us both. Emma will go to preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30-3:00pm. Her class section is only half full (10 students) so she will get a lot of one-on-one time from her teachers: Mrs. Smith & Mrs. Vruggink.

Today she only went for an introductory hour and Mamma went too. Emma was the first to arrive and walked in with great confidence. Immediately she started to look for frogs. She was pretty perplexed and kind of upset that she couldn't find one single frog. Finally, I found a picture of a frog in a book but she wasn't too impressed. Give this girl 1 minute in any store, in any church, in any magazine and she will find the frogs. I hope she doesn't get turned off from school just because there are no frogs. The kids were allowed to explore the classroom and play before coloring a self-portrait and having a story read to them. Emma did very good listening and answering questions as long as the little girl next to her was not poking her or trying to distract her.


Then they enjoyed some play time on the playground. Emma played with Tiffany most of the time and hit it off well with her it seemed. I then struck up a conversation (well one-sided at least) with Tiffany's mother. She is Korean and really doesn't speak English all that well. My heart immediately went out to her as her answers were short and sometimes grammatically wrong. I could totally sympathize in feeling like an outsider having been on her end while at parent meetings in Italy. It is so obvious that you are a foreigner and you feel like everyone knows everyone else. I felt like an outsider here as well, but knowing the language is more than half the battle in building relationships and feeling comfortable. I tried to ask her simple questions and say that my brother just got engaged to a Korean (oh ya, that story is coming soon!) but didn't get many questions asked in return. Anyway, pray that I would have more opportunities with this woman, Piong (or something like that..I couldn't quite catch it) even if it's just a simple smile and acknowledgment that someone recognizes her existence. Truly, it made all the difference to me taking Samuel to school in Italy when someone would offer a smile.

Tiffany & Emma

Samuel & Emma both attend school at Bauer