In her own words...

My daddy is so helpful to me.

Second Day

It's hard to really tell how Maya is doing in her class. She doesn't really say much about the class time. When instruction ends at 2:20pm, she goes into an after-care program called "Step-Up". She's mixed with K-3 (I think) kids. I'm not really sure what they do, but today she said they listened to a lady sing.

Today when I took her to school I stayed with her in the cafeteria until her teacher came to pick up the kids. And then I walked with them over to her classroom. Just before the teacher showed up in the cafeteria Maya said she was thirsty but they didn't have a water fountain in the cafeteria (that would make too much sense), it was only outside. Well, we didn't have time to go outside to get a drink before her teacher walked them to their classroom. I walked behind them and Maya started to cry. I caught up with her (she was at the end of her line) to see what was the matter. Well, we had passed a (tall) water fountain and she really wanted a drink. As she was crying she asked for my help to get a drink. So we walked back to the water fountain and I lifted her up to get a quick drink and she got back in line just in time to enter her room. I said good-bye again and she turned back and raised her left hand and waved good-bye. She looked so cute with her skirt uniform and superman backpack on her back.

She started her last session of swim lessons with the Parks & Rec this past Tuesday. So I picked her up around 4:30 and we headed to the swimming pool park. Her lesson start at 5:20, so we had time to change and hang out in the shade and eat a snack or two. She has not been very good at eating all of her lunch these past two days. We'll have to figure out why she isn't eating all her lunch.

Maya's first day of Kindergarten

Maya spent the night the night with her mom so I went over there this morning. She was already dressed in her dark blue skirt and shirt. The school has a uniform policy. She was eating breakfast. She wasn't exactly her cheery self and Linda told me Maya had fought with her on "everything" this morning. As Maya was drinking her hot tea, I interviewed her. I asked what she wanted to be when she grows up. At first she said she wanted to tell stories and jokes to people. Then she said she wanted to be a librarian where she could read stories to people.

We went over the contents of her lunch box and made sure she know where everything was.

She wanted to drive in my car to school so she got in and off we went.

As we drove up the school, we saw lots of people in the court yard. Maya was very quiet. I could tell she was scared but she never started to cry. Linda joined us in the cafeteria where the kindergardners are to meet each day. Most of the kids there were having breakfast...which today was either cold cereal or a pizza square. Linda commented on that strange breakfast meal. I agree....piazza for breakfast seemed odd to me.

The other thing I noticed was the apparent lack of adhering to the uniform dress code. Their dress code is rather liberal, but I was surprised to see anyone wearing jeans. Perhaps the first day is a "free dress day". We'll see.

Maya's teacher came around the table and gave each of her students their name tags. There is another "Mya" in her class...but her name is spelled "Mya". Maya was pretty much quiet throughout the time in the cafeteria. I tried to get her to talk to this other boy in her class that didn't appear to have any parents with him. He looked rather lonely, but not really scared. We finally marched together over to her classroom where each student was to find their name on their desk and place their backpacks on the back of the chair and then have a seat on the floor. About the only time I saw any sort of smile from Maya was when she found her name on her desk. She seemed proud. It took a while to get all the kids sitting on the floor. Meanwhile the parents were standing around the edge of the room watching.

I had commented to Linda that Maya's brown hair with blond-ish streaks was the lightest hair color in the class. Most of the students looked to be of either Hispanic or Asian persuasion.

After all the kids were seated, the teacher started to address them...and then stopped and finally really acknowledged the parents. She said the parents were allowed to stay a little bit (emphasis on "little bit") longer. At which time I raised my hand and asked where the kids were to be picked up at the end of the day. She told told us outside on her ramp.

It was then that Linda and waved good-bye to Maya and left the room. Maya waved back to us. I didn't see her cheerful smile, I could tell she was worried/scared, but I know she'll be ok once the day got started.

So that was the beginning of her first day of Kindergarten.

I'll put up some of the pictures later....to be honest I didn't get very many good shots of her smiling as she appeared worried or shy in the pictures.

An Introduction

This is Maya's dad. I'll be Maya's "ghost writer" until she's able to write her own blog. I've had my own blogs for many years and recently most of my blog entries have been about my daughter, Maya, and so I've decided that I should just create a blog for her and document snippets of her life to share with family and friends. And perhaps one day, when she's older, she'll want to look back to read about her younger years.

I guess what really prompted me to start blog now is that tomorrow (well, technically today since it's past midnight) she'll start Kindergarten. She finished preschool a few weeks back and now she's heading on to Kindergarten at a new school.

She's had a pretty busy past few weeks, this Summer of 2009. I'll write a few entries to document her summer. But for now, I just wanted to start this journal with this simple introduction.