#2276 Her friend’s note

Tonight I am totally ripping off someone else’s work for my gratitude post.

But by the end of this, you will understand why as well as completely applaud it.

Baby girl used to bring home loads of artwork and drawings from school. It all started in kinder, and the amount of papers I had that had splashes of paint on them, was just way too many to count.

Nowadays, the papers are fewer, but they still trickle in. She brought a stack of note paper home today though, saying that her and her friends had been writing each other notes, before crumpling them up and throwing them to each other.

Cute.

She then read out one note, written to her by one of her best friends (as you will see).

Here it goes, word for word:

“Dear baby girl*,

Please read this to your parents. Hi SmikG* Hubbie* your Dad. Baby girl* is my BFF I will look after her till the day I die we went from not knowing each other to friends to best friends to friends back to best friend to BFFS.

Thank you.”

OMG. I was actually emotional (no surprise there). I said to baby girl that that was a pretty beautiful note, and then we proceeded to read it out to her Dad, as requested of course, over dinner tonight.

I don’t know whether they will stay friends for a while, a long time, or even forever, and I am less sure if she will look after her as well as I will… but I am grateful for the sentiment, and sure, her BFF can try. 😉💖🙏😍

#1481 School care

Earlier tonight I was telling Hubbie how I would tell any new Mum, a Mum with young child, hell, even a parent who had a child that didn’t have the perks of what I’m about to divulge, about something unbelievably fantastic that they MUST have in their child’s school.

I would even encourage parents without this school perk to seriously consider moving their kids elsewhere.

But firstly, to explain… baby girl has been babied, all her life.

She’s had me picking her up from kinder and primary school, at the precise start and end time, every time.

With the start of primary school, Hubbie was thrown in the mix too, so that on Wednesdays he joined me in dropping her off and picking her up, and there has maybe been, um, 3 times that he’s had to get her that I wasn’t there…

But really, I have dropped her off/picked her up from school 99.99% of the time… Hubbie 0.01%.

But it’s always been US. 9:15 and 2:15 at kinder. 9:00 and 3:30 at school.

ON THE MARK.

But that ALL dramatically changed today. Because not only was she there for before school care… she was there at the start time of 6:45.

6:45!

And if that wasn’t enough, that wasn’t even all. She was there for after school care for about 30 minutes as well.

Hubbie and I were stressing a bit, I won’t lie… but she was amazing. She got up on time, listened to us in the crazy morning rush, and by the end of the day when I picked her up, I felt like I was interrupting her… here was a hall full of 40 kids, all sitting around tables having healthy after-school snacks, with baby girl lining up to get her share!

She took a plate home though… too right, I paid for that half hour! 😉

But she seriously loved it.

It’s all fun and games for the little ones. And why wouldn’t it be? She was with friends, kids from her class, they got to eat breakfast in the morning, snacks after school, have a supply of movies, board games, colouring, games they played with the care teachers, they had really, EVERYTHING.

It’s a freaking holiday.

On her takeaway plate was some fruit, vegies, a pancake with jam, cheese and crackers, and as we got into the car I said “no fair, I want to go to after school care!”

“Nope, you can’t!”

Damn it. But quietly, YES.

So back to my main point. If you are looking at schools for your kid, look at which ones provide before and after school care. It’s a win-win. Your child has fun, they’re in a familiar place, and you get to be a human being and go to work and talk to adults.

Like I said, WIN-WIN.

BEST. THING. EVER.

#1376 Clearing her early artwork

Here’s something no one probably knows about me.

I have kept every single piece of artwork that baby girl has EVER brought home from kinder and primary school.

EVER.

Now you may not think this is much, her being nearly at the end of prep and all and still so early into her education… but if you combine this year, with her 3 and 4 year-old years of kinder, and top that with the knowledge that baby girl LOVES painting and crafty things and even made it her subconscious mission to bring home about 2-3 artworks per day when she was at kinder, well that equates to one impressive collection.

I have kept it all, sure. But the place I have been shoving it all into (i.e. spare cupboard) is bursting at the seams with this art, and I for one had to find another way.

Enter the phone, and the idea.

!

I couldn’t part with these artworks, I just couldn’t. But at the same time I HAD SO MANY. At this rate I should have bought the house next door just to accommodate her take-home stuff, and that would have been one expensive storage solution.

So I decided to do with her artwork, what I do with all those photos I take that I don’t develop.

I store them digitally.

I set about today taking photos of every single piece of her art from kinder years. I’ll get to primary school in due time 😉 I lay them out and snapped away, throwing out piles and piles of paper to feed the recycling bin, while I kept what is a minutely small pile in comparison.

Well I have to keep something, duh.

I feel better already. And though it’s only the beginning of my clearing process, the weight has already begun to lift off my shoulders…

 

 

#1226 An easy Monday

Ahh. A taste of things to come.

We are so close to the end of term 2. So close to school holidays. And we definitely felt that today.

Baby girl had her once-a-term curriculum day today, and it was so well-timed, what with it being like, 4 degrees this morning… brrr.

We slept in through the morning frost before lounging about on the couch after brekkie…

And then later while driving around, visited her old kindergarten and old teachers (she loves that place) and checked in to the good ‘ol adjoining park with its great grand trees.

Sure, it was a chilly day. But that sun was shining a blinding white light, and it made our day off, that much sweeter. ♥

#1065 Parsley

I pulled out the dated, half-wilted, half-somewhat acceptable herb from my fridge.

Hmm. Had it been in there 1 week, or 2? That’s right, it was about New Year’s.

15 days.

A bunch of parsley. I needed a good bunch of it to go with a new tabbouleh recipe I was trying that used quinoa instead of cous cous.

But with what I had, there wasn’t quite enough for a good ‘bunch’ of it…

HOLD ON.

It took me a while to realise it, and habit has it that I always look in my fridge when I need fresh herbs, to see what is leftover from the grocery shop, but –

I suddenly remembered with sheer delight, that I had parsley growing right outside the kitchen window!

It was a small portion that had been slowly growing ever since baby girl brought it home from kinder last year. Lots of plants she brought home from there died quickly, just due to sheer neglect and forgetfulness to do anything vital and life-saving with them.

But when the parsley came home, and being the warmer end-of-year season that it was, I knew this one HAD to be a keeper.

It’s been going steadily, and only today after realising my lack of it, did I realise it was finally at a stage where I could go out, and actually, snip some off.

Well blimey. I might just be the female Jamie Oliver after all.

And the end result, with store-bought parsley and home-grown one all chopped up together?

It was DEE-licious.

 

#1038 Reminiscing on kinder days.

Today wasn’t as bittersweet as I thought.

Because I focused on the sugar.

I love all the colour. Her unicorn backpack. 🦄🎒 Soon it will be navy, with the rest of her standard uniform… gone the wear-what-you-like, heart leggings and butterfly top days.  ❤️🦋

I love the freedom. Walking into class, with 5 different activities and games happening in different corners. The kids choose as they please, but next year there will be structure, and the choice will be offered within strict parameters.

I love the size. 20 or so kids, and 20 or so parents…

when next year it is them, versus the SCHOOL. 🏫

I love the teachers. They have helped her grow and mature. When I wasn’t around to settle a sore finger or bruised knee, they sat with her as she cried. 😢💔

And the trees… how I adore them. 😍🌳🌳🌳

I say ‘I love,’ but now it is really, “I loved.”

Because the kinder days are officially over.🔚

 

 

#1037 Kinder flower hair

I don’t have many words as to why I like this image…

I just do. I don’t even have much backstory. Baby girl’s friend put it in her hair at kinder, and, and…

(sniff)

It’s so darn cute. Innocent. Sweet.

(Missing kinder already) 😭❤️

 

#1033 Rain onslaught

I think it’s fair to say, a lot of people would have whinged at some point today.

All about the RAIN.

But for me, I don’t know… I found it novel. Interesting.

Different.

Before you accuse me of not having to go to work in it or battle public transport despite it, sure, I wasn’t on my most favourite freeway (NOT) the Monash today.

I did however, still have to take baby girl to kinder. We got drenched walking to the car. We got drenched walking to the kinder. Then as I left, I got drenched again.

I took these photos upon getting back to my car. I had sat down in a huff, observing my rain-splattered self before me in the quiet and solitude of the car. The world had gone blurry. Life had to move on, and yet the rain did not give one shit that it was throwing a massive spanner in the works.

I kinda liked it’s boldness.

We need to move on through life, no matter what is thrown at us… and there’s nothing quite like a proverbial bucket of water being thrown at you, to wake you up and ruffle up those wet feathers.

🌧💦🌧💦

#1030 The wrapping begins

And the Christmas gratitude continues.

You know there are some people who wait until they have bought ALL their Christmas presents until they begin wrapping them? Hey, YOU may even be one of those people.

I am here to say though, that I am not one of those people.

Part of the reason is because if I waited until I had bought absolutely everything, I wouldn’t wrap anything ’til days before the festive day, since there is always some little pesky last minute thing I need to get.

Another reason is that I have catch-ups leading up to Christmas day, and that too means I need to get my wrap game on earlier.

And thirdly? Well I need to see the Christmas tree filling up with presents as soon as possible. Seeing all that delightful red, green and gold underneath, with pretty ribbons and sparkly stuff, well it just warms my soul.

And for that reason, I started wrapping my first lot of presents today.

I did it strategically, while baby girl was at kinder… and when she later saw it, she gasped and said “Wait a minute, presents under the tree! I can’t believe it! Any for me?”

And that’s why I had to be strategic 😉

#1026 Kinder photos from the past year

It’s an early post for me today, but sometimes you know in your heart of hearts, what you will think about for days, weeks, even months later, when you look back at a certain day.

And I know what I will think of when I look back on today.

It was the most beautiful day at baby girl’s kinder for her informal graduation ceremony, and Christmas family day. It was an early one this year, because the kindergarten teacher will be off overseas soon, and so they held the party today.

Never mind I am already having kinder withdrawals with 2 weeks to go. Not only will I miss the place terribly, the innocent culture, the amazing teachers, the kids, the community vibe… but I will miss their greenery.

After the kids sang some very sweet songs and Christmas songs to the parents, and were presented individually with a group photo congratulating them on their kindergarten participation, we took a couple of graduation hat photos, before heading off home with all her Christmas presents and goodies from the day.

I went through one of the bags at home. She had received book upon book upon book. I instructed her to put them under the Christmas tree, and she promptly did so, as I came upon an envelope…

I peered inside.

There were photos.

As I started to pull them out, I gasped, and burst into tears.

It was tears of happiness. Tears of gratitude. Giant, sobbing, shoulder-heaving tears. I went through the photos, only half a dozen, but photos that showed my daughter playing at kinder. Interacting with others. Playing with her friends. Mucking about on the slide. Posing in capes.

I tearfully went through each one, pouring over it enthusiastically while trying to gain an inside glimpse of her kindergarten life from the brief snapshots I had.

They were soooo valuable to me… because baby girl rarely tells me what happens at kinder.

She will tell me dribs and drabs. Who she sat next to for lunch. Whether she had a turn on the spiderweb swing or not. How many times she went to the loo. She seems persistent to not tell me much at all, and though I try to find ways to ease the information out of her, and the teachers put up photos of their various activities week in and week out, I still don’t get the feedback I so crave.

Which is why I figuratively clutched the photos to my heart when I saw them.

It was a build up of everything. How far she had come. How far she had grown. Where she had started when she started there last year, to today, standing front row during the  songs and singing loudly “there’s a reindeer on my roof!”

I am so happy today. So proud. Time goes on, and sometimes it goes slow, yet sometimes it goes fast…

And it’s on days like today, these brief glimpses within our lives, where we look back and say “wow. Here we are.”

Here we are. ♥