First Day of (Pre) School!!

Thankfully, this weekend had much less drama and excitement than last weekend's! However, our week did have its share of drama.....
On Tuesday, Nathan donned his new backpack, and together with his mom, went to his pre-school for the very first time! At the school, Liesel was allowed to accompany Nathan for his first day. He really enjoyed himself then and eagerly awaited his second time, which happened to be on Thursday! The difference on Thursday is that Liesel would no longer be at Nathan's side, and instead of just one hour - he would be there for two and a half hours. So as Liesel anxiously delivered Nathan to his school for the second time, she silently wondered how our boy was going to cope. She did not know it, but he was soon going to give her an answer. She pulled up to the entrance of the school, where a teacher came to collect Nathan from the car. Nathan took the teacher's hand as they both walked into the building together, and didn't even once look back at Liesel for re-assurance. It was then that she realized that Nathan is growing up much faster than we, as his parents, are prepared to let him.....


Another noteworthy event for us this weekend, was our tour of the hospital's Birthing Center - where Liesel will be giving birth to the first US Citizen in the McCarthy household! The first word that I can think of to describe the center is: IMPRESSIVE! It is at least 8 times larger than Flora Clinic's maternity ward in South Africa where Nathan made his entrance into our lives. Here the 3rd floor contains the actual birthing wards. Each mother-to-be is given a private room - complete with private shower and jacuzzi bath. Then when the time comes - the mother will give birth in her room - as the room has all the necessary equipment to deliver, including a warming bed for the newborn! Then after a couple of hours of recovery, the mom and baby are transferred to the fourth floor, where they complete the prescribed course of bed-rest. They have a state of the art nursery where the babies are cared for while mom can get some much needed sleep! Nathan enjoyed this part of the tour the most as they wheeled a baby - not much more than a couple of hours old and weighing 6lbs (2.7kg)- to the viewing window of the nursery. We could see Nathan was intrigued by this as we saw him comparing his hand to the baby's. He did ask a couple of times if that was his baby brother :) If only it were that easy!!!!