There have been a lot of changes for our oldest, Paco. He’s had a tough few months; with the sale of our home in San Jose, leaving his beloved Centro Armonia pre-school, moving to Davis, and the added stress of his new brother… not to mention Erin’s medical condition. One of the reasons we chose to move to Davis in April was the quality of the schools here. We had hoped to register him for a K-6 Spanish immersion elementary school run by the city. However, we arrived in town too late to register for the lottery and ended up 14 spaces down on the wait list. We were told not to be too optimistic about getting in.

Davis turned one of their public elementary schools, César Chávez Elementary (por supuesto), into this Spanish Immersion magnet school back in 1982. In years past we understand that getting in was simply a question of requesting it. This year, perhaps partly due to the economy (they can afford fewer teachers and some parents may have chosen the public option rather then private schools) the school was oversubscribed.

Last Friday afternoon we received a call from the school that they had a last minute spot open up for Paco and asking if we wanted it. YES.

Paco was both excited by the prospect of continuing his education in Spanish but was clearly anxious about starting at yet another school (he had been attending a summer program at the English school near our home and made some friends with potential classmates).

Today was his first day of school and I seems as if they sent us back a new child. I think all of his anxiety over the new school and the move melted away after he met his wonderful new teachers and instantly hit it off with a number of his new classmates. I believe he is one of only two students in the class who already speak Spanish. I picked him up at 3 pm and he had a smile from ear to ear and couldn’t stop talking about how much fun he had. Of course, this being Davis, I picked him up by bicycle (he rides on a little bike that is trailered behind mine for now) and we rode to Baskin Robbins for a first-day-of-school treat.

As a side note, his teacher is a Davis native who was a member of the third class to enter Kindergarten at César Chávez, completed elementary school there, and returned a few years ago after teaching at other schools in the area.

Here are some photos of our big boy.