Amber's First Day at School

Woke up at 7:00 am sharp. Amber was excited she couldn’t eat! Wow even her milk, she declined. Grabe na ito! Papayat na ata sa wakas ang biik ko! hehehe

A quick morning wash she dressed up in a new dress with red vertical stripes quite similar in look to the school’s uniform. Her uniforms were not ready yet. Wearing her school shoes, new socks and a new frock she posed with her bag for some snapshots as we prepared her school snack box. I packed biscuits, cupcakes, a strawberry jam sandwich she particularly requested the night before and some strawberry milkshake and water.

Kate and I took her to school and we were early. She sat on her desk, painted pink, and patiently waited for the other students to come and excited for her class to begin. We loitered around the playground for a while, taking glimpses of how she is behaving. One time I peeked, she had one leg up on her desk, examining her shoe. She put it back down quickly. Second time I looked; she moved to the farthest (in the back) desk in the room and was looking at the pictures on the walls. She moved to probably get a bigger view, or to give the front seats to the other arriving students, how thoughtful!

By this time, we’ve been in school for about 30 minutes when the Supervisor told us that if they are settled and in the class, better go and let them be. Seeing parents lurking around may incite children to feel more anxious. So we left, taking our last glimpse of Amber Declan. She was looking like Gromit but without her arms folded together. (The Gromit look is one she made up after seeing the animated Wallace and Gromit movie. Since the dog does not talk, he has many facial expressions, one of them Amber had perfected to a tee.) Her look may be because she’s eager for something to happen, or she’s still a bit sleepy from the early wake up call. Whatever it was I will never know as Kate and I drove home.

At 12:00 noon I rushed back to school to pick her up. Now she was seated at the front right side of the room and immediately stood up and grabbed her bag saying, “My mommy is here, bye teacher Sabina!” and went out the room without a second look.

I told her we have to go pick up her uniform because it is now ready and on the way she said, “Mom I enjoyed school today. Look I have a star and a smiley face”, showing both backs of her hands to me proudly.

In the car, she said they were made to color a flag and a kite. They also made a circle and played some games.

When we got home, she was pretty hungry. Checking her snack box, she only drank her strawberry milk and ate the small cake but barely took a bite off her sandwich. We tried on her new uniform and she posed for more pictures.

She said, “Mom a boy teased me today.” Alarm bells went ringing in my head and asked her, “So what did he say and what did you do?” My daughter laughed and said, “I couldn’t understand what he said but he looked really funny!”

Asked whether she wants to go back again tomorrow, she simply affirmed, “Yes.”

Awww, my baby is growing up into a school girl. I’m so proud and happy.