First Day of Italian Preschool

Noah started school on April 19^th at the Istituto Sant’Eufemia and has loved every second of it. Everyone who works at the school appears to have taken some sort of happy pill. We’ve never seen anything like it. I think the happiest people on Earth all congregated together at Sant’Eufemia. It’s a total trip.

Anyway, Noah really enjoys school and has not shed even a single tear. As per their request, with which we wholeheartedly agreed, Jeff and I took turns going with him the first week to help him adjust to being there. It was so great to participate because we also got to see what it was like and we were able to meet the other kids. There are 20 students in his asilo (preschool) with 3 teachers, Federica (Chicca), Elena, and Daniela. Noah immediately took to all three of them, but formed a special bond with Chicca. He talks about Chicca all the time and is excited to go back to school to see Chicca.

We bought Noah a little book about a little girl going to an asilo and Noah immediately related to it. Suddenly Chicca and Elena were both in the book along with Isabella, a girl from his school. There’s also a little boy in the book that looks a lot like Noah so of course he talks about himself in the book. When he comes home from school he likes to use the book to show us what he did at school. The first day that he took a nap there, he was totally prepared because that was what happened in the book. It was so cute. He even asked to take his book to school that day to show Chicca and Elena.

Last week he fell in love with Giulia and low and behold she was also in his book! He tells us things like, “Ecco la Giulia! Si lava le mani. E ecco Noah che asciuga le mani” (Here’s Giulia! She’s washing her hands. And here’s Noah drying his hands). It’s super cute. We’ve never seen Noah react like this with another child. He’s never been the sort to play a lot with the other kids, but he actually plays with Giulia and then tells us all about how they played together and that he wants to go back to school to play with Giulia. When he sees her or talks about her he gets so excited that sometimes he jumps up and down. It’s hilarious!