The biggest transition period of their childhood is upon us.

First we have Papaya starting preschool.

She was very excited at first, having her own backpack, lunch, classroom, and cubby. She’d spent her whole life dropping big brother off and now it was her turn. Problem is, there was no way for her to fully understand that this all meant no parents during the day. The excitement or novelty wore off after the first couple days and it turned into sadness. Drop offs are now filled with tears and the parents feel terrible. Poor little Papaya thought her Papa would be with her all day everyday her whole life!

Good news is her teachers are great and she sees them as emotional support. She wants to snuggle and kiss them goodbye at pickup. She’s fiercely independent but also a complete mush. Her brother on the other hand is so curious about new things that while there was probably some sadness involved during his preschool transition, it was overshadowed by his enthusiasm for experimenting with whatever was on the table on any given day.

Which brings us to Nashi starting kindergarten.

This big boy just straps on his giant backpack and is off to the adventure with his chin up. He’s proud of himself for being a kindergartener, enthusiastic about being five years old, and very pleased not to have naps at school anymore. It’s a Japanese emersion program half of the day so things may not be easy, but so far so good.

The biggest issue thus far is just the simple matter of this being his first time being responsible for his own things, which means he shows up at the end of the day without his water bottle, lunch bag, backpack, or all three. It’s a pain to wait to get back in and look for things so hopefully he figures this out.

Maybe the actual biggest issue is that we can’t get any information out of him about his day. We only get snippets, like yesterday he said he got cake as a reward for doing a good job cleaning. Huh? I’d like to think he didn’t actually get cake as a reward for cleaning, and he has been known to weave a tale, but point is who knows.

Uncertain times are upon us and I’m sure it’ll all stabilize. Nashi also has an after-school program waiting for him but we’ll be keeping it to just kindergarten for the first week. At this point I think that will be ok too except that means really no nap. Oh boy.