Miss Fine

New school year and new friends

I think we worry too much! The anxiousness got penned down two weeks back in How to cope with the first day back at school? Miss was expressing some worries about being able to cope with Grade 4. The parents' meeting last year did not help to ease our worries, but exacerbated it! (Yikes! We already signed up to a study course for the family and the online Studiemeester is on the budget). The thoughts were around Miss and her being young for her grade...

Wordless Wednesday #344 - First day in Grade 4

How to cope with the first day back at school?

Holiday memories

This has been the longest school holidays ever! We did not do all the Johannesburg Staycation Wish-list things we wanted to, but it was awesome taking a break. The children are only going back to school tomorrow. It's already past the half-way mark of January.

We will miss the relaxed days of holidays, and not sticking to a fixed routine. Miss loves going to bed later, and sleeping until the sun is in the 9th hour quadrant already! We also love sleeping later (at least 30 minutes later), and not having to dodge the early morning traffic. Tomorrow it's a thing of the past! "Sigh!"

But, sticking to my "positive" word of the year, I have to grab this year by it's Grade 4 horns. Miss is apprehensive about this year, and after a school meeting with the prospective Grade 4 parents, we are also worried aware of the challenges! (Help!?)

A locker is a lifesaver

Little Miss got a locker at her new school.

It has been huge fun each day to take necessities such as an umbrella and tissues to put in it. She did not have the opportunity at her previous school, as they only allowed older children to have lockers. We could really have used a locker the previous years, because the guitar and hockey stick always had to be dragged along...

It made me think about the positives of having your own locker:

- She has her own safe space in a new big environment.
- She has a place where she can put her own stamp on things. She has been taking photos and stickers to school to brighten the interior of the locker.
- She has a place to put all the extra stuff, such as sport equipment and an umbrella.
- She has a place where she can keep her heavy books, when necessary. (It seems not as pertinent this year, but in the years to come I am sure it will help a lot!) Their suitcases are already extremely heavy!
- It helps to have a locker at aftercare for backups in clothes, such as an extra jacket, or backup munchies.

I wish we had lockers when we were at school. I still have one shoulder that is hanging because of the heavy suitcases we had to carry.


What is your thoughts around having a locker at school, especially primary school?

First week at a new school

Little Miss first week of school, at a new school, has been daunting. We are glad we made the move, and there is a definite positive effect on both Mom and Dad's traffic commutes!

The challenges:

- The new environment is difficult to navigate for a direction-ally challenged kid. (Mom as well!)
- It's not as easy as asking kids to play with them. They already have their friends and groups of their own. They just say "No!" (Heartbreaking)
- We sent a child to school on Monday with stomach-ache which we thought was spastic colon (nerves), but had to go fetch her earlier. It turns out it is bladder infection because she keeps it in (not wanting to go because of dodgy toilets). I even walked past a younger girl with her dad yesterday who just had an accident. She told her dad she was keeping it in until he came to fetch her. It was 4pm in the afternoon already! (Shame!)
- There was a melt-down in class. We got a call! (Horrors)
- The activities that Little Miss is interested in, is overlapping. What do we keep, and what do we change?
- There was a general athletics meeting where Little Miss got sun burnt for the first time, and her nose are peeling. She was also spending half her time searching for me, although I could only be there at 1pm.  (Bad Mom-moment - I should have explained better about being there later...)

The positives:

- Little Miss (and her parents) do not have to sit for hours in the car going and coming from school.
- Little Miss got a playmate during lunch-breaks yesterday, but she does not know the girl's name. (Thumbs crossed)
- Little Miss has been doing handstands with one of the new boys at after-care, and yesterday afternoon there was a new "friend" that she bonded with in class after they both felt sick on Monday.
- Little Miss does not have any issues going to the tuck shop at school. She knows all the new rules! (*sigh* Trying each day to get a few cents from Mom and Dad)
- Little Miss can't stop talking about her new school. She is enjoying most of it! (Big THUMBS UP!)
- Little Miss likes her new teacher.
- I was asked to buy a special file for her yesterday that she can keep in her bag for homework. She enjoyed sorting and marking it yesterday, and was excited to use it today. (The power of the right stationery!)
- BETTER COMMUTE! (Easier, faster, cheaper!)


The positives outweighs the negatives!
The challenges are not necessarily a bad thing, and we will work on it this year!

How's your back-to-school going?

Back to a new school

Little Miss started in Grade 3 in a new school today. We have been contemplating the move for a couple of years. We drive past her new school each day, and it just did not make economic sense to continue driving through traffic and for longer hours each day for 5 more years.

It was a bit daunting for her, and she was worried about fitting in and finding new friends...
(Daunting for the parents as well, I must add!)

The parents were encouraged to come along with her, and we appreciated that we could accompany her until she was settled into her new class.

We picked her up earlier today as well from the aftercare as well, and she was her usual talkative self as well! It was a great day. She got lost a couple of times, but there's lots of great stories she told us.

The best! They warned the children not to leave their bags open as the chickens and peacocks scratches for food or lay their eggs in them! How awesome! To have chickens and peacocks and bunnies roaming around on the school yard!

O, and she told us repeatedly she did not have any homework. Until we discovered a couple of books that needed to be covered for tomorrow! The joys! NOT!


How was your first day back at school?

Rat Race 2017 - Here we go!

According to the Urban Dictionary:

Rat Race is a term used to describe a frustrating, hard-to-break financial lifestyle. It is a lifestyle that is lived by countless people, oblivious to the very nature of it, to a degree that even when called upon, vehemently deny it.
To summarize the Rat Race, It involves subjecting one's self to a time-consuming job, saddling one's self with heavy mortgages/rents, bills, children, and liabilities, forcing the individual to continue busting his or her ass at that same job. The illusion that working at the same job will be better bars off alternatives.

I have been back at work from last week already, but things are only kicking in this week. The schools starts on Wednesday. The school clothes are ready, the books and pencils are marked and Little Miss is getting excited for a new beginning at a new school!

I do not feel despondent on this Monday, but the rat race phenomenon makes me question the way we are living. From paycheck to paycheck...

Maybe I will find the answer in this earth-shattering (for me! ;-)) 50th year of my life? The older I get, the less answers I have! (sic! I know!)

Are you ready for the new year and the new school year?

Here we go!

Wordless Wednesday #291 - Back to school