A heavy heart

I have a very heavy heart this morning.

In the space of 24 hours I have had all three children crying to me about how they feel. Last night the eldest sobbed to me in her bed about how she didn't fit in here and how much she missed her group of friends back home. This morning the seven year old looked at me in the school yard with wild eyes pleading that he didn't want to go in today. And then the four year old sat on my lap for half an hour in his classroom clutching at me desperately and crying big tears saying that he wished he was still in his playschool in Ireland.

What makes it even worse is that this was our choice. No one forced us into it, no job contract made us come here. We did it for the adventure. We did it to widen our children's lives and experiences and to introduce them to a new language and culture. We thought we would build their confidence and their characters.

Now I'm wondering if we are doing exactly the opposite of that. What if we have ripped them away from their safe place and broken their happy-go-lucky, not a care in the world existence for good? What if this feeling stays with them long after they have settled in and comes back as anxiety and panic in later life? What if...what if...what if?

The sun may be shining outside my window, but right now this path feels dark and scary.

Starting Spanish School - the first week

This time last week the nerves were really starting to set in. None of the children wanted to go to school. The 9 year old was afraid she wouldn't be able to do the work because she wouldn't understand, the 7 year old was nervous he wouldn't have anyone to play with, and the 4 year old didn't know what was about to hit him as he'd never even been to big school at all.

First day - feeling brave

Monday morning 9am saw us all standing in the playground trying to look brave. Kaya was lucky enough to have met some of her classmates already and was now firm friends with one of them. She joined her line and before we could even say 'buena suerte' she was gone. Soon after we walked Marley to his class, met his lovely teacher and with a big deep breath he said his goodbyes and went in to meet his classmates.

So that left Baxter. At 4 we had thought he would make the easiest adjustment. However, new school, new teacher, new classmates, new language was a lot to ask of him. He was incredibly brave going in but we arranged to pick him up early anyway.

As the week progressed poor Baxter got more and more distressed. There is one little English girl in the class who is looking after him but seeing him walking around the playground on his own kicking stones about has been tough to watch.

The other two are really flying though. They've both got their little group of friends already and seem un-phased by most of the challenges. Of course there are hiccups that we didn't predict - being called up to the blackboard to do multiplication when you haven't yet covered that in your old school can't be much fun, and who could of predicted that my daughters name in Valenciano means 'shut up'? Still working out how to deal with that one...

For the month of September the school runs from 9am - 1pm but after that it is broken up into two parts: 9am - 12pm and then 3pm - 4.30pm. The children can stay in the school during the break and do extracurricular activities or they can come home. This will be a whole new ballgame for us all but it's nice to be eased in gently with the half days for the first month.

So one week down and I am incredibly proud of my little estudiantes. I can finally start to breath again.

It's the weekend!

Next challenge - moving house!