Thursday, January 31, 2013

29th of January

 

Here it is, the first day of school for 2013.  Raining in the morning and steamy in the house, it was time to start the transition from lazy, slow wakenings to organised, scheduled timetables.  I quite like the change - you can only appreciate the former if you've had the latter.  If we only had cosy lie-in mornings we'd just grow to resent things starting in the morning, and there's so much more to a day than fit into what's left after waking at 10am.  And if we only lived by alarms then we'd be so addled by the demands of time that we'd feel we had time for nothing.  

So yep, I like the start of school to move us from one time of year to another.  Plus the children were driving me (and more importantly, each other) insane.  Yes, there was that little chestnut to consider.



Harriet happily posed for me outside school for her annual embarrassing photo.  Unfortunately I didn't realise that my lens was all steamed up and horribly incapable of taking a decent image.  There was another child having his photo taken in the same spot, (a common occurrence) so we waited our turn.  It turned out that it was a new boy who was starting in Harriet's class - who would have thought?

We went upstairs and met her teacher.  Apparently he's known for wearing loud shirts, but he was relatively sombre for the first day, with only a smattering of purple amongst the grey.  Harriet already knew most of her class and was happy enough to just have a quick hug and a kiss and then toddle off to settle down with a group of boys playing a game with dice in a corner on the floor.



There was a bit more change in the air for Ted - he was moving up a level literally.  Transition is on the first floor, but with the same teachers as last year.  It turns out that he will be having the same French teacher that Harriet had, we're not too sure why his previous French teacher has left.  But of course Akemi was still there, who Ted embraced enthusiastically, and she even received a big smooch on the cheek from him.

You wouldn't know it from this photo but he was in a great mood, very excited about his first day and this is where he eagerly sat as he awaited the start of the 'Good Morning' song.  He would scream if I even brought the camera up near my face, so I could only snap this while he wasn't looking, as I held the camera down by my hip.  On one of the tables there was an electric typewriter set up, with post-its, pens in a jar, a cordless phone and some paper.  Ted took to the 'work desk' with joyful glee.  Apparently the boss called a number of time and he wrote 'boss' on a piece of paper to ensure the next worker knew the omnipresent eye of authority was upon her or him.

After it was goodbye to Ted I had a coffee down the road with a table of other mothers, where we all chatted away for ages.  I eventually came home and did very little - read, blogged, washed, made dinner.  The usual, but in my own rhythm, my own time, my own choices.  Ah, the bliss of it all.

 

As we were driving home from school pick up, Ted asked if he could play Starfall, because "I haven't even looked at it in AGES, Mama".  And for once his exaggerated tone was on the money, he really hadn't looked at it in ages.  So he sat down and read the stories to Harriet, who happily sat there and played along with him.  They then happily trotted off together to play an elaborate game of 'space shops' and then Harriet played violin for ages as well, with Teddy the happy audience member.  

Can anyone spell harmony?  I had been quite prepared to deal with the result of tiredness and cranky children, yet they reveled in coming back together at the end of the day to discuss what they'd explored and discovered, what stories they'd heard and the way they constructed it all as a story for us to hear.  It was as I suspected - they needed some time apart doing age-appropriate things with their peers for some time.  It doesn't have to happen all the time, but with seven weeks of close confinement it did seem to be the remedy for what ailed them this time around.  And I, for one, was incredibly grateful.

No comments: