chalk and cheese

Sunday's new school couldn't be less like the school she attended last year. We loved last year's school, and we love this one, make no mistake, but I do marvel at the differences.

Last year's school was bright and colourful and spanking clean. This year's school is earthy and natural, the brightest colours in the place are on the kids, this year's school is muddy and haphazard and ... mysterious.

Last year's dressing up rail was a parade of delightful outfits, various characters and animals, lots of sparkly fairy wings.
This year's dressing up suitcase is a unknown bundle of weird and wonderful - second-hand hats and homemade creations, scarves in every natural dyed colour known to childkind.

Last year's play-dough was glittery and aromatic, cut with bright plastic shape cutters, this year's play-dough is ... yup, naturally dyed, and slowly all melding into the same shade of brown, moulded into gnomes and toadstools.

Last year's outside was a big netted trampoline, climbing frames and a guinea-pig in a hutch. This year's outside is a vintage swing-set, a climbable tree, a teepee and a friendly Great Dane to pet through a fence.

Last year's school had the alphabet on the wall, this year's school has a surfboard in the corner.

But what last year's school and this year's school have in common is this: a teacher whom Sunday loves. A woman who sees my baby girl, who gets her idiosyncrasies and laughs at her jokes, who guides her through these first fragile years of learning about group interaction and standing on one's own two small feet.

Two utterly different sides of the same warm, secure coin. How lucky to be exposed to both.

loving them fiercely

Phone pic, Main Rd Diepriver

Friday started Grade R last week. She's been so excited about it for so long and, as is her way, glided straight into a new environment with nary a backward glance.
I'm in such awe at how well she embraces change.
This 'big school' thing has awakened stuff in me though. Of course. Concerned thoughts about a future in which, invariably, we'll face a time when she doesn't think I'm such a fun person to hang out with. A time when she'll have secrets, have fears that she'll not share, a time when she'll not laugh at my silly jokes but roll her eyes and groan.
I've found myself, somewhat pathetically I admit, feeling triumphant when I have made her laugh this week. Feeling grateful for the big hugs I've gotten, my heart singing when she jumped into my arms after that first day of school and whispered 'I love you Mum'.
Each moment from the womb that imaginary umbilical cord stretches just a little further, but last week I felt its tug so sharply.

With Sunday I had almost the opposite experience.

The pre-school we'd signed her up for last year turned out to be a total dud. Disengaged staff, dirty and broken toys, cat poo in the sand pit (loads of cat poo at that). At first I felt like a fool, why had I not seen the obvious flaws when I'd visited last year? Then I felt like a snob, we were so spoiled by her previous, magnificent, play school that maybe my standards were too high? Then I felt angry - I've visited pre-schools in townships with almost no equipment, where the smell of cleaning detergent is so strong it'll make your eyes water - clean, happy schools run by underpaid people determined to give every child the best experience they can - there is NO excuse for bad hygiene in schools for little people.
So we left, Sunday and I, and went out for breakfast to regroup.
And as we chatted at the table, that umbilical cord shrunk a little. I had been about to reel my youngest out a bit, to send her off a little further into the world without me. Now she'll be home for a while as we come up with another plan, home alone with me.

That 2013 To Do list will have to simmer on the back burner for a little longer. I'll get there, I'll get there.