Justice's First Day of School!

Yesterday was Justice’s first day of Kindergarten!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was SO EXCITING, and yet one of those ‘scary mom moments’ at the same time. To entrust your child into the hands of others is an interesting experience!

I don’t have any real in-depth thoughts about our decision to have Justice start school now, other than Jake and I both have felt that ‘he is ready’. We had been thinking it in our minds separately, and then one night as we were talking about Justice we both discovered that we were thinking the same thing. I think his school readiness comes from a few things:

First of all, his English speaking and comprehension is AWESOME! This was one thing I really did not expect. He’s really only been learning and speaking English since December 2009….which means it hasn’t even been a year yet. Other than adjusting to our accents and learning American words in place of British-English words, he really has had no problem communicating or understanding what we are saying. It’s kind of amazing. English is the primary language in Ghana, however, it is not spoken in the villages or remote towns. But it is taught in most of the schools in Ghana. We enrolled Justice in school around December of last year in Ghana, which is where he started learning his alphabet and some English. His English progressed much further once we moved him in with Esi and family. They speak English in their home, and made it a priority to only speak English with Justice so that he could learn it. If he did not know English well, we would not be sending him to school this early.

Another thing that has really helped our situation is that Justice has transitioned/adjusted to our family extremely well. I know this can really vary with adoptions, and I feel that this is such a huge blessing from God. We haven’t really experienced any of the heart-breaking issues that I’ve read about regarding bonding/attachment gone bad. I think the time that we got to spend in Ghana on our different trips over the past year really helped to solidfy our commitment to Justice in his mind. I really can’t even describe the way that he has just molded himself right into our lives….perfectly. He was a perfect fit and we all know it. This undoubtedly was also helped by his time spent with Esi and family….as he learned how to function in a family setting.

Another thing that has been flourishing is Justice’s desire to learn. He is just ON FIRE for learning new things right now. He asks at least a million questions a day, and is so determined to learn new skills. If I show him something new, I notice him practicing and practicing until he gets it just right. When we toured Justice’s school for the first time last week, he was so wide-eyed! At first when we walked in he kept asking me where the school was! He didn’t understand that the entire building was the school. He was expecting one little room within the building to be ‘the school’. :) When we toured the art room, music room, classroom, and gym, he then realized that all of the rooms were the school. And he looked at me with a big old smile and said “School is going to be SO fun!” And that it was! Here are a few pieces that he brought home in his ‘take home folder’ yesterday:

And here he is stepping off the school bus with Sam! You could see his smile from a mile away!

At dinner time we do our highs and lows for the day, and his favorite part of the day (his high) was going to school and ‘playing football with his friends.’ JJ asked him how many friends he made and Justice said “Oh JJ, I made too many friends and I can’t count them all!” LOVE IT! :)