Today was my last day of school until late August.  So that means it was Aidan's last day at daycare until I go back to work, and he has been told that he will start kindergarten in the fall.  Several times this week he has asked me if I will miss him when he goes to his new school.  I have told him that Daddy will take him to school and that he will probably be on a schoolbus at the end of the day, but that Mommy would pick him up after she gets done work.  I think the whole transition and related conversations have unleashed yet more memories of his transitions in China.

Here is tonight's bathtime conversation.  He wanted to know if I missed him when he was at his "new house" and if Sissy (LB) and I cried when he was there.  I said yes, we were sad because we didn't know when he would ever be able to come on the plane to our house with us.  He said he didn't come on a plane.  He went by bus from his new house to another house.  He took some of his Mom's money and spent it at a store on toys and food, but only enough for lunch.  There was a big girl on the bus but she wasn't like Sissy and wasn't one of the kids.  He says he was one of the younger kids, that not all of the seats were full, and that he cried because he was scared.  He said some of the other kids cried too.  He says that he waited at the other house for us.

Needless to say, we will be spending a lot of time at his kindergarten this summer (it's about half a mile from our house), even if it just means playing on the playground so that he knows it is a place he goes to and then returns home from.

A day at the beach with LB & friends-still far too cold to swim, but warm enough to wade and play on the sand

Picture
The "new house" is obviously the foster home he lived in.  When G asked about seeing his new house, Aidan said no, duh, we would have to get on a plane to do that.

Other "new house" memories that have come out in the last couple of weeks are that the bathroom was outside and it was dark there.  He said there was no door but he gets confused when he talks about that, so maybe there was a curtain or something.  There was no bathtub like at our house.  When I asked about a wash basin, he had to think about it and said there wasn't one.  (Often wash basins are not with the toilet in China, so that wasn't a surprise) 

He slept in a room by himself with the lights off.  Another kid is now sleeping in his bed.

He rode a bike without training wheels there.  He really wants his Daddy to make his bike just two wheels like that one, though he says his Diego bike is much nicer than the one he had in China.  He would ride the bike on the road.  There were other boys to play with-once he said two, once he said five.  He had a girlfriend down the road who he played with.