Sawyer's First Day of Youchien (Japanese Preschool)

I've been wanting to send Sawyer to preschool for a while.  Given his personality and his tendency towards teenage angst at the age of three, I've felt that spending a couple of hours a day for a couple days a week outside of our home playing and learning with friends would be just what he needed.  So, when I got to Tokyo I began researching to find the perfect preschool for Sawyer.  You know, nothing crazy, just a little school program where he could learn and grow and feel independent.  And it wasn't long before I had a list of several perfect preschools.  I found excellent schools with passionate mission statements that made me feel like sending Sawyer there would make us parents of the year.  But then, I looked up the tuition and the schools seemed much less perfect, as you can imagine.  Our options quickly reduced to two, keeping Sawyer home for another year or sending him to a Japanese preschool.

Children in Japan, or at least the majority of children in Tokyo, begin school at three years old.  It's called youchien (yo-chee-en). Youchien runs from 9am until 2:30pm five days a week.  Ouch. The kids wear little uniforms and their parents are very involved with their child's experience.  Even so, there is no way that I am sending Sawyer to school for five hours a day all week long.  My little Sauce is really fun to hang out with at the moment, and the thought of spending so much time away from him after spending every hour of his life with him for three years seemed too much for him (me) to handle.  I know, I'm spoiled.

After lots of discussion and lots of compromising with each other and with a local youchien, we've decided to give Japanese preschool a try.  We'll be sending him for a shortened day and taking Wednesdays off.  It's been a week and a half now, and we're all still getting used to preschool.  The tears at goodbye have largely stopped and now there's just a bit of sulking.  I'm sure it would be a whole lot easier if Sawyer and I spoke Japanese, because no one speaks English.

Yesterday I picked Sawyer up and noticed he was wearing different clothes from what I sent him in.  "Uh oh..." I thought.  The teacher tried to explain to me what had happened, and I assumed she was telling me that he peed his pants. I just kept nodding my head and saying I'm sorry, which I've learned   is almost always the right answer when someone speaks to me in Japanese.  Finally, another mother came over and whispered in my ear, "She's saying that he jumped in the pond..." I just cracked up, but not surprisingly, my answer was exactly the same, "Hai.  Hai.  Sumimasen."  When I ask Sawyer about it later he said, "I was trying to jump OVER the pond," which is funny since he can barely jump an inch off the ground.  I'm not surprised though, up until recently he also tried to climb into to his toy trucks (the little ones, that a Barbie wouldn't even fit in.)

For the first hour of school, the kids play outside in a fenced off dirt playground.  The play structures are old, like the ones that we used to play on when we were in elementary school.   They are well-kept, but just not the same safety standards that I'm used to in the U.S.  It's the kind of playground that when you look at it you imagine your kid spending the summer running around with a cast on his arm.  I fully expect a broken bone from Sawyer before the school year is out.  But when you see the kids running around having the time of their lives, experimenting and growing, you almost don't care, you know? There's a little pond with beautiful coi fish that the kids feed each morning.  There's a little flower garden that the kids can water, and the teachers pick flowers for the kids to play with each morning.  Before they go inside for actual preschool the kids run a "marathon" around the school yard  to get them focused and tired (I'm sure).

On the Saturday before the start of preschool, the youchien had a welcoming ceremony.  We were warned ahead of time that this ceremony would involve a lot of crying...they weren't kidding.  When we arrived at the youchien dressed in our Sunday best, the teachers whisked the kids away to get them ready to march inside.  I didn't expect to cry myself, but I did.  A lot.  I held back, of course.  I'm already the weird foreigner, I didn't also want to be the weird foreigner who cries at a preschool entrance ceremony.  But there was something so deeply painful about leaving Sawyer with strangers and letting him fend for himself, even for just a short time.  I know that this must be the same feeling that a million mothers have felt before me, but it didn't make it any easier.  Of course, Jonathan's snickers and jeers helped to replace the heart throbs with a blood thirsty desire to punch in him the face.  Sawyer felt no shame in expressing his distress during the ceremony. Two and a half hours later with dozens of crying children whaling in our ears, the youchien ended the ceremony, and we were reunited with our little boy.  Unfortunately, Sawyer's excitement about preschool waned after the event, we promised him he would never have to do something like that again.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!
Sawyer's first day of school.  I had to make the smock and his little orange bag. He insisted on wearing his fuzzy camo pants. Isn't he handsome?

Sawyer's name is written on every single thing that he carries to school.  I mean everything.  His name is not only written on his box of crayons, but also on each individual crayon as well.  The school clearly lays out every single thing that he needs and where it should be kept, even down to the kleenex that must be kept in his smock pocket.

Walking to school.  The youchien is about a 10 minute walk from our house.

All of Sawyer's cubbies and hooks are identified with a red horse.  When we get to preschool we hang up his uniform put on his smock, place his notebook in his teacher's box, hang up his towel, and then finally he can play.  On the first day, he didn't feel at home until he found the Very Hungry Caterpillar to read.

Here is his classroom.

Sawyer likes digging in this sand pit the best.

When I picked Sawyer up on his first day he was crying a lot.  Apparently he really, really wanted his scissors.

We made the mistake of taking the whole family to drop Sawyer off at preschool today. Watching your whole family walk away and leave you behind is not a good feeling.  Poor lonely Sawyer.