Back to School Night

Jonah's school had its Back to School Night last night. Kids were not supposed to go, which at first made me scratch my head and wonder why not. I guess it is easier to just have adults and be able to talk without the kids running around. Raymond really wanted to go to the meeting so his dad graciously drove to our house after work to watch our boys for us.

First all of the parents gathered in the chapel and we listened to the administrator as he explained new policies and that sort of thing. I got to sit next to my good friend Cheri and she whispered that a new student's mother is deaf and was there, sitting in the back. Once we were to break up and go to our children's classrooms, I hesitantly approached the mom and signed to her. She was surprised to see that I knew American Sign Language and we introduced ourselves. I told her I'd be happy to accompany her to her son's classroom and interpret for her if she wanted me to. She was grateful because otherwise she wouldn't know what was being said. I felt bad that she had sat through the initial presentation without knowing what was going on. I gave Raymond a look to make sure it was okay with him and he was fine with it.

We headed to the classroom and I jumped right in, interpreting what the teacher was saying. I was in my element and glad to be able to help her. It took much longer than I thought it would though and by the time it was over, Raymond and I hurried over to the preschool to hopefully have a chance to meet Jonah's teacher. Well it was too late to meet her since she had already gone to see her own kids' teachers. Raymond was at least able to see the classroom, since he had not seen it before, and the aide was there and she talked to us about Jonah and how well he has been doing at school. We had worried he'd be too shy to talk to other kids or the teachers but she said he has gotten out of his shell more and more. Whew! He's doing great and his class as a whole has been a good one so far. We had brought our camera to take pictures but I totally forgot about it in my haste to get to the classroom. Sorry!

I asked Jonah yesterday after school if he liked it and he said yes. Then just to be sure, I asked him if he would rather stay home or if he would want to keep going to school? He looked at me like I was crazy and said he wants to go to school. I am so glad he likes it!

He has also started at a local church's AWANA program and is now in Cubbies. He seemed to enjoy his first night there on Wednesday and will be going weekly. Poor Nathan, he's too young to go to school and AWANA so he's stuck at home with me! Thankfully he doesn't seem to mind and did not get upset when we yet again left Jonah somewhere "fun" while we went home.

It is really weird that Jonah has his own activities that only he gets to go to. He is getting so big!