Call Me Charlie

Issue 332

You guys,

We were out to breakfast when Sam broke the news to George that he’d be moving up to the 6-7-year-old class in Japan this fall.

That’s what he was meant to do since he’d be turning six in August, but after much deliberation in Uruguay, we had decided to keep him back in the 4-5 class with Layla. We heard the jump from the 4-5 class to the 6-7 class was a big one. Kids went from choosing their own activities and getting tons of outdoor play, to writing long sentences and sitting at their desks for more intense lessons in math.

George had thrived in Uruguay. You’d never know he had a speech delay with how articulate he was. He was an eager student, we were told, always raising his hand and volunteering to go first and lead the class. He loved school, loved his teachers, and was social with his classmates. He was a voracious reader, listening to me read him stories for an hour most nights and he always wanted more. His listening comprehension was most impressive—he sometimes stopped me to ask a question or make a comment on what he’d just heard. We were once reading book 2 of The Wild Robot series, and the farmer asked Roz the Robot if she’d ever used a computer before. I thought it was silly to ask a robot if it ever used a computer before when George laughed and said, “She is a computer! Of course she knows how to use one!”

My favorite recent development of George’s was the way he became obsessed with things. Besides reading, it was chess and soccer. He could sit for two hours playing and learning about chess, and he was constantly asking for one more game of indoor soccer with a little blow-up ball. But handwriting was not something he wanted to practice. Math didn’t seem to be his favorite either. He had less interest in those things. In the 4-5 class, he had more agency over choosing what he wanted to do. In the 6-7 class, he’d have to sit through learning about something he might not want to learn about. We didn’t want to squash his confidence and love of learning. I had long conversations with his teacher in Uruguay. She was very supportive either way. But she said if it was her, she’d keep him back, not because he couldn’t handle it, but because what’s the harm in keeping them young and happy and confident in a foreign place for just three more months? Japan was going to be a huge adjustment already. When we went to Spain in January, he could move up to the 6-7 class then. There was also his literal size. George was smaller than the kids his age. He would fit right in with the 4-5-year-olds. I wasn’t sure how he’d feel potentially being the smallest kid in the class.

Sam hadn’t told me he was going to tell him at breakfast, on our last morning in Park City, when we’d woken the kids up early after a late night, and George had refused to get out of bed, wouldn’t let us take off his jammies so we could pack them, and cried and whined and eventually screamed at me for being mean to him. Traveling this much did not allow for routine. I was supposed to have grace for my kids on these mornings. I didn’t.

We’d ordered our breakfast—an egg sandwich for me and Sam, two flat whites, a side of scrambled eggs and bacon for the kids, a cinnamon roll, and a blueberry muffin. George had just said he was hungry and thirsty, and there was no food or water in front of him yet. He’d been a part of the decision back in Uruguay. He did a test run one day in the 6-7 class, to see how he’d feel up there. He told me later, “It was a little fun, but a little boring.” I believe they were doing a lesson on shapes. When we asked him what he preferred, he said he wanted to stay back in the Explorers class.

But while we were in Park City, I’d heard from the head of the Education Program in Japan. I’d reached out to her with our thoughts, not wanting to make the decision without their support. She replied that she’d spoken with George’s previous teacher in Greece and with the School Support Head, and they believed that George would thrive in the 6-7 class. She also assured me that he would not be the youngest one in the class. They would monitor his transition, and if it was too overwhelming he could move back down after a week or two.

Sam at least waited until the cinnamon roll was cut into fours and George had taken a bite. I searched his face, wondering what he thought about this turn of events. George does better when there’s a plan, when he knows what to expect, and we’d just changed the plan. When he didn’t say anything, Sam asked, “How do you feel about that?”

George looked down. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Papa?” Layla interjected. The four of us were sitting close together in a corner booth. I hadn’t been thinking about her, and now I wondered what she had to offer her brother about the news. “Can you tell George not to take the bacon off my plate today?”

The morning before, we’d come to the same restaurant for breakfast, and George had eaten the last piece of bacon off her plate. She’d been distraught and angry with him, and she clenched her teeth and got her face really close to his face—which was something she did whenever she was mad at one of us. I always told her not to do that, not only because it was intimidating but because she really grinded her teeth and I was worried she was going to chip them. Afterwards, on our walk back to the hotel, she said, “George? I’m sorry I yelled at you, but next time can you please not take the bacon off my plate?”

He’d said okay, and the argument was resolved, and I’d told her how proud I was of her for saying sorry and communicating so well.

“Layla, you know this concerns you too, right?” I said. She looked up at me with her doe-brown eyes and chunky cheeks. She hadn’t been listening to a word we’d said. “George is going up to the 6-7 class. That means he won’t be in your class in Japan.”

I saw the news sink in, the despair on her face—just like when George took the bacon off her plate. “I want George to be in my class!” she wailed, and threw her head into my lap.

A half-smile crept onto George’s lips.

“You must be a pretty great brother to have in class,” Sam said and put his arm around him.

“Yea,” said George. My confident, almost-6-year-old.

—

Until next week,

Charlie