Baz is going to school for the summer. We're rueing our decision to start him late - just last January - and don't want him to lose the momentum from those first three months. Baz tends to be wary in new environments, and true to form, after just a two week interregnum he needed Monday's first session to warm up to new classmates and teachers for the summer.
Today he did much better - no more hanging out by the door. When I left he was coloring on an easel.
Baz attends Toddlers Unlimited in Makati - good school, new and complete facilities, and most importantly, pretty teachers. I mean, they have pretty brains. Teachers Nikki and Claudia took time to integrate Baz despite his late enrollment. Everybody else in the class - Marga, Diego, Ethan, Cha Mei, Priyanka, Clexy, Isabel - had been there since June.
One of the things I've enjoyed doing - in addition to the new experience of taking him to school - is watching Baz interact with classmates and teachers, without him knowing. The Toddlers classrooms have little windows so that you can see the kids, but they can't see you. I've spent quite some time - after pretending to leave - just watching from those small windows.
Scientists say that the presence of an observer affects the result. Not to mean that Baz is a science experiment, but I have noticed that - complex guy that he is - he's got his own set of "when-people-are-watching-me" behaviour. Tie this in to the fact that, in general, he doesn't like being observed. I think that's because he is observant himself; he knows what it means to watch another person. His "Most Observant" medal from school - yes, they noticed that about him too - hangs proudly and magnetically on our refrigerator door.
Colloquially, the term that comes to mind is "conscious," as in, "Ay, madaling ma-conscious." But for Baz I think it's deeper and more nuanced than that, and a marker that he's mature beyond his four years. I'm still trying to figure it out-need to do some more observing.
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