Like many
parents it was our eldest’s first day of school this week. We have all had six
long weeks to prepare for this yet I am still a PE kit short oops! Least next
year I’ll be more prepared… haha cough splutter.
We are lucky
that the school are not uber strict on uniform and doubly lucky my next door
neighbour’s child is older than mine and had an abundance of hand me down in
near perfect order. So I only had to buy shirts, polo tops, shoes, sock and PE
kit (oops). The local supermarket had a great deal on a lot of what I needed so
I stocked up there and then we headed for the shoe shop, you know the good one
that actually measures feet properly but is rather expensive. One of my girls
feet are so narrow she needs an insole yet the other so wide shoes from any
other retailer will not fit her, hence a mini panic attack everytime they need
new shoes and pray it falls after pay day.
My girl can
be so endearing, she always gets everyone on side with her charm and
compliments. We were in the shoe shop and as usual she is wearing one of her
pretty dresses, she insists on wearing them as jeans and the like are a
complete no no. One of the assistances says what a pretty dress, she replies ‘why
thank you, you are kind and you are a very beautiful lady’ the woman gushes.
The next lady comes over to measure feet and asks what type of shoes we are
buying today ‘school shoes of course, I’m going to start school soon. Are you
going to help me I bet you can chose the best shoes’. So now the whole shop wants
to help and the visit was actually rather pleasant, I mean normally I would be
chasing her little sister around the room stopping her throwing shoes/random
objects at people or trying to eat inedible things whilst escaping from the
shop and stripping her nappy off. However youngest is in the land of nod
hoorah!
Looking at
my social media pages I see my friends, neighbours etc updates are about how
emotional they are about their kids starting or going back to school. All I can
think about is; have I packed everything she needs? I bet just before we leave
youngest’s nappy will need an emergency change and how the hell am I supposed
to label a water bottle?
The day
arrives and she looks so gorgeous in her uniform, we walk to school and she is
excited. As we enter the gates I feel very proud of her taking this all in her
stride. We enter the class room hang and her coat on the peg that has her
picture on. Every other child is smiling nicely in their picture, my girl is
practically gurning… I love it. Then her friend runs over and they run off
together, I shout bye and I hear a little bye back, I can’t believe I didn’t get
a kiss and a cuddle but hey she looks like she’s having fun so I don’t mind.
I turn to
leave and see a group of women all crying and I really don’t understand all the
kids are having great fun, perhaps I’m the odd one? But I do wish I had a kiss
good bye and as I look at her on collection in her uniform all grown up I think
wow time does go pretty damn fast.
