Weekend / First Day Year One / Preschool Visit in Days of My Destiny

We went to Tamworth on the weekend and saw Saving Mr Banks. It was a really great movie. A little beyond our children, and the theme of the author's life was a little deep for my liking with my kids there, but M really enjoyed it anyway. There were parts where I cried and if the movie had finished at that moment, I would've found it pretty difficult to stop crying! I kept thinking to myself, "It's just a movie," but at the same time, I really wanted to FEEL it. And I did :)

Then we went for lunch. The girls were pretty restless after the movies, so while L ordered lunch for us (subway), instead of making them stand still in line, I went for a walk with them. We browsed around Aldi for five minutes, lol. I saw a 100 litre water tank there for about $60 and it looked perfect for what we've thought to do with the one corner of the house where there is no downpipe. On the odd occasion when we do get a good 25mm of rain, all that water falls straight through the gutter hole and onto the grass below, wasted. So I told L about the water tank I saw, and he went to have a look. We checked out Bunnings aswell, seeing as L had to buy a new toilet for this house (the one here is really old and basically water just trickles down the side these days, it doesn't flush anything away anymore, due to massive calcium water build up in every part of it from the bore water. We have to use a bucket to flush every single time, and we end up using about 6L of water per flush. Big waste, and also, inconvenient, especially when visitors are here.) He saw another 100 litre water tank there but it was about $20 more expensive and did not include any fittings or the stand, like the Aldi one did, so we went back and bought the Aldi one. So there are a few jobs for L to do this coming weekend.

Last night we had Trent over for dinner and a few quiet drinks. His wife has been away for a week, so we figured we'd keep him some company. That was nice, we sat out on the back verandah after putting the kids to bed and there was the most relaxing breeze coming through the screens. It feels SO good to be able to use that whole area again. When we first moved in, we had put our green couches there and it was there that we'd chill out on a summer's night. But then we got the dog, and winter came. The dog was only tiny in winter, so we let him sleep inside in a cage. Then he outgrew the cage, so we let him sleep on the green couches. Sometimes I'd let him stay there if I had to go out. In the end, that whole area became the dog's, as he slept there a lot and destroyed the couches completely, and had dog hair all over the place. He tore up a lot of the girls' shoes in there whenever they'd leave them there and finally, we just did not walk in there. I never kept up with tidying up that area, so when I de-cluttered it a few weeks ago, everything went OUT! Couches, rubbish, everything. It felt GREAT! Then I put the two maroon leather couches from mum and dad out there and one other single couch. The way I've faced them is great, it means whoever sits on the leather couches gets a great view of the backyard. It just feels so so good to be using that space again. Needless to say, the dog is not allowed in there unless we're there now, lol.

We didn't end up going to bed until after midnight. We didn't have the best sleep and L's alarm went off at 5am. I decided I'd be the one to get up and let him sleep in for another 10 minutes. I prepared his lunch. He really appreciated that. He says I treat him SO well, lol. I just love how little it actually takes to keep him happy :) Well, it doesn't feel like much, anyway. I went back to bed after he left and didn't fall asleep again until around 6am, and then the alarm went off at 7:30am for M's first day back at school. It was a nice, slow paced, easy, cruisy morning as we went about the things we had to do. M was really happy and at one point when it was time to go almost, she gave little L a longing look and a tight squeeze. Poor thing!!! It was adorable and sad, like she has really enjoyed these holidays with her sister and she knows it. She was happy though, she looked proudly at me and said, "I'm in Year One, now." LOL! My baby. She realised she'll most likely be sitting where the Year Ones sat last year in the classroom. We had a chat about how she won't be the smallest in the school anymore and I gave her some tips on how she can look after the Kindergarten kids. She didn't look too impressed at the concept of having to look after someone, so I kept it casual and told her that I know she's really looking forward to catching up with her friends and that she'll be busy enough as it is, and that it's only if she sees them lost or lonely, lol.

I took a photo of her first day of school this year, to compare to last year's and I hope to do this every year.

At breakfast time, I prayed and asked God to watch over M on her first day back at school and to help her focus on being kind to everyone today and on being who He wants her to be. I prayed for Little L and I, that we won't miss her so much. As I first started saying that, my intention was to show M that we love her, but by the time I got to the end of that request, I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. At the end of the prayer, M was searching my face but trying not to show it, looking for tears.

Her best friend arrived at school not long after we did, and after a little bit of play, they went to check out their classroom. They spun out at the new layout and they spun out BIGTIME when they saw the show'n'tell chart and saw that they have different show'n'tell days this year, lololololol. So cute. I took photos of them. I stayed for parade. M looked SO HAPPY when it was time to sing the Australian National Anthem. (You would not believe how much her and Little L sang this in the last few weeks of school last year, I tell you they sang it at least 5 times everyday, I was so over it a month later, lmao!!!!). She'd look over at me proudly, smiling as she sang, it was so so so cute! And of course I smiled right back and sang the old anthem proudly too, sharing that bonding moment between mother and daughter, woman and girl, grown-up and child.

I went for a coffee catch up afterwards with Helen, Janet, Kate and Renee. Janet is the mother of M's little best friend, and she has a younger daughter who gets along well with Little L. (She also has a son but he was off to pre-school today.) Anyway the two girls were wearing the exact same dress! LOL. Janet was going on for ages about how we must both love Target and have similar taste in clothes, and then I told her how actually it was a gift from her aunty in Brisbane! But she clearly wasn't paying close attention to what I said, as later on when Kate turned up and noticed the same dresses, she told her how we must both have the same taste in clothes and we would've seen it in the shops and both thought, oh what a lovely dress. [that was completely weird..... did you not hear ANYTHING I said back there?! lol some people. but really, Janet is so lovely and I really like her so she's easily forgiven, haha]

I was unsure whether I'd then go and do grocery shopping or come home. I decided I'd come home, I mean by then it was after 10am and I have to be back in town for swimming at 2:30pm, which doesn't give me many hours in between. I realised I don't want to spend those hours rushing around buying groceries and coming home exhausted, only to quickly pack the groceries away and rush back out for swimming. Stuff that. So home I am!

Before we came home though, we dropped in at L's preschool to say hello and for her to meet the teachers. Well really I had to go in and ask if it's okay that she goes on Wednesday rather than Tuesday, they said that's fine so that's GREAT. She would've started today if I had got my act together in these 3 years she's been alive, to get the Immunisation Conscientious Objection Form sorted, but I hadn't needed to until now. And because it's such a small town, it means that the doctors are always fully booked. She can't start preschool until this form is signed and sent in. I have an appointment TOMORROW, and the first day of preschool was TODAY. Ahhh just one of those things, but I'm only more than happy to have my girl with me for another week :) Haha, anyone would think she'll be going full-time, she won't be, she'll only be going one day a week, lol, but still. ANYWAY. I had also tried to get into the doctors in the next town, and even THEY are fully booked, like for the rest of the month!!!! So L had a good little visit at preschool and she saw a whole bunch of kids that she already knows in some way or another, so that's great. She was really happy and didn't want to leave!!!! Lol!!!!! On the way home, she was babbling all these random nothings and then saying, "Awwww," at the end of all of them. After a while, I was laughing and I'm like, "What on earth are you doing??" and she goes, "I'm just doing funny things." Lol. I think it was all the excitement of preschool, lololol. My little princess.