From Kindy to Primary...

Alan and I have been getting more and more excited with the thought of our princess Megan joining P1 next year. Thank God for the open door to be able to do volunteer work in Kuo Chuan Pres Primary. The activities were a tad dreadful, but we absolutely enjoyed going to the school and interacting with the students through the 46hours. We got to watch the assemblies, the silent reading time, the Christian Ed classes too. And I must say that we are pretty impressed with what we see in most of the students. Polite, enthusiastic and happy kids - even in gym class, where they had to do their cartwheels!

We've been thinking about how Meg will look like in the uniform, or how she'll handle buying food in the canteen. We also think about how she'll get used to the idea of only going to school in the afternoon, or whether she knows how to call me on a pay-phone using a 10c coin if she needs to.

The other day, I was in school manning my booth for the school's International Friendship Day, and I had to go to the washroom. The one that was available to me without walking too far was the girls' toilet. I was shocked at a few things I saw when I went in. There were 3 sitting cubicles and 5 squatting cubicles. GOSH. Up until now, Meg has always avoided using squatting toilets. She was always worried that she'll lose her balance and drop inside. But she'll only get 30mins (I think) of recess where she'll have to queue for her food, eat it, and then queue for the 3 sitting cubicles. How??? I made a mental note to practise at home with her.

Believe it or not, I forgot which side to face when squatting (had to ask my colleagues)! And I'm gonna have to teach her how to pee and not get her clothes wet while squatting too! One more thing. The cubicles have no toilet paper! So I must remind her to take the toilet paper from outside the cubicles before going in, if not, she'll have to re-queue!!!

Last Sat we went shopping around... I came to the section that has kids school backpacks for sale. My oh my. I had no idea school backpacks are these pricey now! One of those popular ergonomic-friendly bags that promise to protect your child's little spine costs $138! I took one down from the shelf, and tried it on Meg. Trust me, I really nearly dropped it - cos it was sooo heavy! Now I understand why so many mommies and maids end up taking their children's bags! It's madness, as it is, without books, a water bottle, a pencilcase, files and what-have-yous. And when Meg carried it in all enthusiasm, she had to lean forward - a natural reaction when you're carrying something heavy on your back. Hmm... imagine if her classroom in on the 2nd/3rd/4th storey!!!