School Days

Thomas started Transition (Australian kindergarten) Tuesday, Oct. 6th; the day after Spring Break. We had all visited the school the week before and Tom and I were both overwhelmed how great it sounded: the kids spend a lot of time outside, they spend almost as much time on social skills as academics, they learn art, music and Japanese. Before sitting down to a reading or math lesson, they might do some jumping jacks or have a run around the oval.
The federal government just gave Living Waters 2.4 million dollars with which they are building a new library and computer lab. Another federal grant supplied all the classrooms with interactive white boards last year. This is a Lutheran School. Can you imagine the heads exploding should such a thing happen in the US?
Thomas's prior predictions that he would, "Never, ever, ever go to school, EVER!" were slightly off. I got him up and in his uniform. His socks itched, his shoes were too tight, he tore at the neckline of the shirt like it was a boa constrictor. Still, with granola bar in hand, he kind of happily buckled into the car.
Nrrrrrr.. nrrr....rrr....r. Dead battery.
Back out of the car, back in the house. I called the only 2 people I thought might be home and might have jumper cables. No answer.
Well, for 2 weeks we had no car and used cabs. No money.
Well, he could stay home one more day. No way.
I called the cab. They take plastic and were here in minutes. We enjoyed our first day very much.
The teacher, "Mr. M" (Misinskus), is a great bear of a man with bushy grey-black hair and beard to match. He spent his most recent years teaching out bush in schools with up to 4 grades in one room. Watching this big guy surrounded by 5 and 6 year-olds, you can see he loves his work.
Our first day of school had to be cut short right after skipping rope lessons inP.E., just so I could work on getting the car fixed.
No worries, Mate. The first repair shop I called came over, jumped the battery and led me back to the shop for a test. The battery was fine. Go up the road to another place and have the alternator checked. The alternator was fine. Good news is, they've seen this before. Everything in Alice is within a few miles, so there are lots of short trips. You run to the store, the school, the library. Turn the car off and on and off and on. You need a nice, long drive to recharge the battery. We weren't driving our car enough!
The whole time of the car repair and subsequent scenic tour, Thomas kept asking to put his uniform back on and go see if anyone was still at school. I told him he could go again tomorrow, if he was good. He's gone very happily every day since. Yay!
He's working on sight words, greater-than/less-than, counting by 2's and 5's and the finches in the classroom have laid 2 eggs.