It has been an incredibly long time (well, Steemit long time) since I did a Ulog post... but I did have an idea for a post (well many ideas, but I'm splitting these up, as they are posts about different days!). Unfortunately, it was a day that happened last week, and so this will be a bit of a retro ulog! On the plus side, I hear that retro stuff is all the rage these days... or was that several years ago?

After Summer

Summer is a great time for family bonding as the kids are home from school. As my wife and I are both freelancers that are often working outside the normal work (and school) hours, it means that we get to spend much much more quality time with the children! In the end, we did manage to many things over the holidays, including a little holiday to England. However, at the end of two or more months of quality time, it is more than time for us to part ways for a little bit and send the kids back to the creche and school!

There was some excitement for the first day of school for our oldest daughter. She had moved up into the Middlebouw (groups 3/4/5) at her school, and so it was the start of the first year of "serious" school. She loves going to school, but the last 2 and a half years, she has been in the same classroom with the same teachers, and she was a bit nervous (yet excited) to be moving up into the bigger and older class.

Our youngest on the other hand, was definitely NOT pleased to be going back to childcare... she started going on a different day (not the day that I'm writing about), and that was a tough hand=over... much screaming to be had, but in the end she enjoyed it (LIKE SHE ALWAYS DOES!). She is much more of a clinging and shy child than our oldest was...

School Drop-off

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It was strange to go to a new room with a new teacher and mostly new children! At our daughter's school, the years are grouped together, so she moved up from the Onderbouw (group 0/1/2) into the Middlebouw (group 3/4/5). This means that the kids don't move up as a block, however, it does mean that the older kids can help the younger children acclimatise to the new situation. Luckily, she did move into this older class with one of her good friends, so she wasn't all by herself in a new place!

Her first response to the new classroom was that there were lots of computers, and that there wasn't a pretend store that they pretend to be in a shop! My first impression was that one of the teachers (there are two teachers, that teach on different days) looked like she was fresh out of school herself! Although, first impressions can be wrong, I think she is definitely less than 30 though!

She was keen to try out all the new stuff though, and soon enough it was time for the parents to leave. I have to say, we were probably much more nervous than she was! Anyway, when we picked her up at the end of the day, she was so happy to have moved into the big kids classroom! Although, she did say that she missed her old teachers... but she still goes by the old classroom and waves and says "hi" to them!

Where is my sister?

I guess the nicest thing about the holidays, was that after 2 months day in and day out, the sisters were getting pretty close and they were getting on pretty well. In the morning, we had to leave for school quite early, before the little one woke up, and so she was a bit confused when she did eventually wake up... We had tried to explain that the oldest would be going to school, but I'm not sure there was much comprehension about what that meant!

The very first thing that she did (as she did all through the holidays) was to run to her sister's room to try and wake her up (but often the oldest was already long awake either reading or playing with LEGO!)... however, this time, there was no one there! So, it was a very touching and more than a little bit sad, as the youngest went from room to room for most of the morning looking for and calling out to her sister. Only two more years before she will go to school, and then they will be in the same building!

The reuniting

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When the oldest did finally get home from school, there were huge hugs and kisses from the little one to the big one. She didn't want to let her go!

However, that was soon replaced an hour later with the bickering and screaming! All of it from the little one, who is in the terrible twos stage... Share nothing, and scream!