We made it to half-term!

Charlotte starts school – 

I’d been both dreading and looking forward to the first day of school. It’s a really strange time for a Mother, as you see your (very) little one entering the big-wide-world without your constant care and protection.  It made me realise that my little Charlotte is becoming a little person in her own right and although she’ll always be my baby, she is now growing into a little girl who will develop her own character, opinions and interests.

Charlotte looks adorable in her little Romsey Abbey C of E Primary School uniform, but she didn’t settle brilliantly into school life.

It took a week of hanging off my leg before she started to skip into the classroom.  Like many mothers, I try to encourage her to make friends with the ‘right’ type of people, however her first friendship was with the naughtiest boy in the class! I suddenly realised that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it – 4 years I have carefully chosen who we mix with, what she hears and sees and now, all of a sudden it’s out of my control!!  In some ways this was undoing all my hard work, but I’m hoping and praying that I’ve taught her well enough to make right decisions, talk to me about all things and behave correctly, despite the distraction and influence of others………….I expect I’ll continue to pray this prayer over her for the rest of her life!

The biggest thing I noticed with Charlotte going to school, was how guilty I felt. I was actually enjoying the time she was there, I was able to concentrate on William a little more, I felt less under pressure and in demand.  However, I also felt upset that I’d not done enough with Charlotte, there was so much more I could have done, I should have read to her more, played horses, drawn pictures together gone for more walks and baked more biscuits.  I don’t want to live with regret in not doing these things, so even though we’ve entered a new ‘season’ in our lives I hope to try and improve my role as mother for the benefit of my little girl.  It’s my responsibility to teach her how to play nicely, to display kindness and friendliness, generosity, consideration and love, to be able to laugh at herself and have fun with others, to express good manners and behaviour and teach her about actions and consequence. I want her to show determination, have good self-esteem, learn about God and display morals and values in a wonderful way – hey, this motherhood thing is hard work, Lord give me strength I pray!

William starts pre-school

I took so many photos of Charlotte on her first day of preschool, wrote loads about her day and time at HCS on my blog….so have I done the same for William? No.  Talk about creating ‘second-child syndrome’!  (This photo was taken almost 7 weeks into term!)  I was so busy buying uniform for Charlotte, ironing on name labels and sorting out logistics of dropping off and collecting them both without a car, that on William’s first day of preschool I forgot a snack, his drink bottle and was slightly late collecting him!

William’s preschool is lovely, it’s called Timsbury Preschool and is just down the road from us, yet far away from town to be ‘rural’. William loves it, he shouts “yippee” when we arrive in the car park and runs into the hall at great speed, with hardly any time to give me a goodbye kiss.  I’ve had the enjoyment of watching him play with the toys and interact with some of the other children and it makes me so happy to see him so happy.

William was invited to a birthday party of one of the little girls who attends the preschool.  It was held at the preschool hall and there was a fab indoor bouncy castle, lots of soft play, a well organised lunch and chance for the mummies to chat.  He had great fun, but now thinks that there should be a bouncy castle every time he goes to preschool!