The Buttons First Day at Big School

We were all up with the sparrows for the 730 start. The twins were filled to the brim with a substantial breakfast, armed with their lunch boxes and we hit the road. We made it in good time, not having to dodge too many lunatics on Sheikh Zyaed Road. It was very hot for the little people walking to their classrooms from the car park but we all made it in one piece (Possibly delaying the process even more for a quick picture under the tree... Oscar wasn't so obliging).

Oscar's classroom was first on route. He stumbled in quite happily and was met with a warm welcome from his teacher (The kiwi one). I found out she was born and bred in Tauranga (My home town! Small world!) Oscar took great delight in putting his drink bottle, hat and book bag in the correct place. He quickly spied the large tray of jelly with gemstones in and got stuck in straight away. No worries there.

Stu took Bailee to her classroom and she settled in happily. The paints were set up and she immediately started using every colour available to paint a rainbow. I couldn't see art shirts and stupidly wondered if it was a Big school thing. The teacher aid brought one over to us and just as Bailee stubbornly refused to put it on she got a large blob of orange paint on her new dress. Cue tears :-( She managed to calm down and I left feeling a little bit sad that the paint incident had happened on her first day.

So 12pm came and I got a taxi to collect them. Oscar spotted me and said "Hi mummy!" and didn't even come running! My big, grown up boy! I watched Bailee happily playing a game on the mat with the rest of the class. She'd clearly recovered from this mornings dramas. She was thrilled with the brown paper bag her teacher had made for all the children.... each one containing a pencil, rubber and pencil sharpener... oh and the dreaded "fizzy lollipop" (Which broke but that is another story!) Oscar's class didn't get a goody bag, just a kind letter to each student. I was surprised by how well he took it. He only once said, "I want a goody bag too", then that was it. Acceptance.

Oscar fell asleep on the way home in the taxi. Bailee told me that she made four friends at school and that they were "... only girls". Oscar later said that he didn't do any learning, he only did playing and that he wants to learn about Dinosaurs tomorrow :-) (Sounds perfect to me!)