Since Jo will fly back to the States this weekend, and tomorrow is a holiday here, today was my last chance to pick B up from school, just me.  Starting next week, I’ll have Liam with me again every time I drop B off or pick him up.  And although that’s fun in a different way, I was excited to get to enjoy some one-on-one time with B today.

We’re still getting used to the schedule of varying school and work holidays here in Austria — the holidays at the IAEA don’t correspond to the local days off very well.  Consequently, B was at school this week, even though about half of his class was off for “Easter holidays”.  It’s one of those things where if I’d known it was routine and customary for kids to be home this week, we would have kept him home and done our own “spring break”, but since we didn’t figure it out until about halfway through the week, he went to school.  On the plus side, he got to spend a quiet week at school playing lots of games and getting lots of attention, and he seemed to really enjoy it.

So, with only about half his class in attendance, when I went to pick him up today, instead of being greeted by the chaos that is 20 preschoolers at lunch time, I was able to watch B do his thing.  And it was great.  All of the kids were focusing intently on varying activities, alone or in pairs — playing games, coloring, doing crafts.  B was playing quietly, by himself, stringing rubber bands on a peg board.  When he saw me in the doorway (on busier days, my arrival is enthusiastically announced by the other children, usually before I even get to see him in his natural state) he told me, “Mommy, I’m busy.  I’m just going to finish up.”

And so he did.  He finished his projects, brought them to show me (he made a “police sign” and a “no police sign”).  Then he collected everything up, put it away neatly, went back, and pushed in his chair.  On his way to the door, he stopped to ask his teachers to thank the Easter Bunny for the basket each child received last week and to wish them a happy Easter (all in German).

I was so impressed with the whole scene, I couldn’t help giggling a little.  He’s so grown up, so responsible and polite.  The last bit, with thanking the Easter Bunny and wishing his teachers a good weekend, even impressed his teachers (although they seemed to completely expect the cleaning up and pushing in of the chair, which is wonderfully fantastic to me).  I couldn’t help but grin and give him an extra big hug on our way out.

He’s an awesome little guy.  I just think he’s one of the coolest people I know.  (I also feel like we’ve really found him a great school.)  It was great to get to witness those few moments at the end of his day.  He’s a great kid, and I love him so very much.