FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

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.