Tuesday was Guillame's first day of school. When he got off the bus I asked him how his day went. Was he sick on the bus? (Only a little on the way home) Did he like school? ("It was alright")
I tried to interview him so I could share the video with you, but the only bit of dialogue I got out of him went like this:
Mama: "So, Gui, what did you do today?"
Gui: "Umm...."
Uncle Ben (whispering): "The bus!"
Gui: "Oh, I got on the bus!"
Mama: "And what was next? What about when you got off the bus?"
Gui: "Oh, that's all I remember."
I did gather some other dribbles of information as the evening went on. He sits at a table with two other boys, one of whom has a french name too. He has to call his teacher "Madame D." when they are doing french. The french word for hello is "bonjour." They traced some words and then wrote them. One of the words was "witch." Another one was "jack o'lantern." They have spelling tests on Fridays.
They made skeletons, and they get to bring them home on Halloween, which is 6 days away! They sang a song about the skeleton that was also from the Bible (Dry Bones). They have two recesses, and during the first one he was only in the quieter play area but for the second he got to go to the busy one. The busy one is better because there are more other kids there.
A girl sat with him on the bus. She is 7 and she is in the other grade one class. He doesn't know her name. She lives "on the block behind ours." (I'm bemused by this description because the roads out here in the countryside don't really form 'blocks'.)
Gui had a tiny bit of handwriting practice for homework and we wrote out and posted the words from his spelling list on the fridge so he could study them at home.
I asked Gui so many questions about his day that my brother Ben quipped, "You know, they make really really small cameras now, we could just clip one on him somewhere." So, maybe I'm a bit inquisitive. It's an odd feeling sending him off to have his own life away from me for 9 hours a day (looooong bus rides, folks!). Pascal is such a quiet kid when left to his own devices that the bulk of the day was really peaceful, but the morning and evening were kind of hectic. I guess I need to get used to that!
