The Magic Uniform: or Cache goes to School

Cache has now been going to school for a full two weeks. I took him to visit one day and he said he really liked it. That was before we met the principal and the teachers. The Singapore citizens are very very kind, but they can also be a bit harsh in their movement and intonation when they speak. And when you are a slower moving kid that likes things mellow and easy going, that can be a hard adjustment. I signed Cache up at this place after a lot of research and signing him at two other schools. We settled on this one mostly for the price and convenience of it being around the corner from our house. It is part daycare and part school. That may be the first problem, but not one that can't be overcome! Kids go at 7am and stay all day (until 7pm). They eat all their meals there, nap and even bathe. Cache only goes for the school hours in the morning, but he does eat his lunch there. So while the first day wasn't too bad, it quickly got worse.

Because it was the beginning of the year for all the students, they are all getting used to the routine which means the dropping off process is wrought with crying, screaming tantrums. Right when you walk in a teacher tests your forehead for your temperature and they check your mouth for sickness. All of these combined in the morning resulted in a lot of tears and anxiety for Cache. It was very stressful watching him go. And each day he got more and more tearful, and increasingly earlier each morning. By the worse day he was crying before he even got dressed and cried all the way there. That was the day I had to put him in a stroller and push him the entire way because he wouldn't walk and then I handed him over screaming. We talked a lot about why he didn't want to go. Each day there was a different reason why,; "I don't like making friends," "I can't make friends because I can't say my name", "A boy hit me." "I don't have a uniform", "I want a different school" etc.

The school is in the middle of redesigning their uniforms so they originally didn't give us one. Cache asked every day why he didn't have one. I tried to talk to him about it, but each day he was increasingly more bothered that he didn't have one and all the other kids did. So in our trouble shooting we decided he would be happier if he had his own uniform. At the beginning of this week, there were so many tears about going that I decided it would be worth paying for an old uniform just so he had one. We also saw another little boy (smaller than Cache) riding his bike to school with his dad. That gave us another idea! When we went to school on tuesday I begged the teacher for a uniform. She said he was so happy when she put it on him and that she had no idea it would be such a big deal for him. So with that, and adding a bike, a brand new school boy emerged. Not one more tear was shed!

It was magical, honestly. It was as if he transformed his entire being and a new one was in its place.
He rides like a crazy man to school! To be honest, I fully expect for him to be hit by a car, he is so reckless. And since he is riding and I am walking, (and he doesn't EVER listen to me) its hard to get him to stay close. But danger aside, he is happy to go to school every day! Yay! The rest of this week has been tear free and we owe it all to this tacky blue and yellow uniform.
He gets to ride and park his bike every day. I think it makes him feel so much more grown up than the kids that get dropped off for day care. And it makes him so so happy.
This is the front of the school. You can see the 'prison'gate. That is constantly locked and only the teachers know the combination. So imagine your first few days being dropped off here with a bunch of screaming toddlers. Left to line up with a bunch of chinese children who know where to go and what to do, and you do not. Plus not being able to understand the Slinglish that is being said and chinese teachers are pushing you here and there. You can imagine how stressful it would be! But now, all the teachers know his name and he knows where to go and can handle himself. They all say he is such a good boy! His class files out of the lunch room at the same time he is leaving and today they were all yelling, "Goodbye Cache!" I think they love him and finally he loves it too.
And he is learning so much! You may be able to see his spelling. They are learning to spell zero thru five. He has them all memorized and now we are just practicing which direction to put all the letters! And yesterday Ronin said, "I don't even know how to spell zero!" So he is learning a lot and we look forward to when he comes home each day to teach us a few chinese words (none of the meanings he can remember yet) and to eat nutella sandwiches together (the residuals, you can see on his face here.) Having him gone for even half the day changes the entire dynamic of the family. We miss him while he is gone, but there is less fighting (which is heaven!) and he gets to learn in the process. Over all, as horrible as it was to have him sad and stressed, we are very glad he is at a school that is mostly chinese students and learning to be apart of a culture so different than his own. He has grown a lot in these last two weeks, as we all have. The irony is, we were SO worried about Ronin getting used to school that we didn't even consider it would be tough on Cache. Again, we are all learning a lot.

So here's to the magic uniform!