Clare’s Mid-Year Report
Posted on 06.01.09 to Clare, Parenting by Joan
Celebrating Dinky’s 4th birthday last month
The past month has been terrible for me, health wise. Strangely, the moment I start exercising, I start falling ill. Terribly ill, for that matter. Couple of weeks back, I was hit by a flu bug that gave me a fever, cough, cold and bodyaches. I finally recovered after a week and was just celebrating how nice it feels to not be ill, when out of the blue, I got hit by the flu AGAIN! This time, the doctor loaded me on meds so powerful, I was constantly groggy and spent almost the entire weekend in bed.
I’m finally well enough to sit upright without feeling like the world is spinning madly around me today, and hence, am going to make a feeble attempt to do some work. I’m still coughing up a storm and I’m trying to take in shallow breaths because any attempt to fill up my lungs more sends my body into a major coughing fit.
Clare’s at her grandmother’s and I suddenly miss her so much. I had a strange feeling wash over me during the weekend, where suddenly all memories of being pregnant and giving birth to her seemed to have disappeared. And it feels like I stole this cute little toddler home instead.
She’s finally completed half a year in school and is on the start of her school holidays. One that even I appreciate. No more dragging her out of bed, packing her stuff, trying to stay on top of school related matters, and it’s nice to have her around at any time of the day. I really hate that her school hours are right smack in the middle of the day, which [a] makes me start my day really late at noon; [b] leave no time for after school activity if I decide to take time off to bring her out. We are still on the waiting list for the earlier session next year and I think I’m going to have to beg them to try to transfer her to the earlier session, if not, it’ll be very hard for me to cope business-wise.
We got her progress report some weeks back, and had our first Parent-Teacher-Conference. Generally, she’s doing alright in school and is displaying most of the milestones of a 2-year-old. Some of the drawbacks of being an only child is also apparent in her behaviour in school, such as, not being able to share. She is rather bossy (although her teacher did not phrase it in those words), and I’m guessing it’s because she’s used to ordering her dogs around the house.
One thing that really took me by surprise in her progress report is her almost non-existent manners — apparently, she doesn’t really say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. This horrified us because we always thought we enforced it on her, but upon hindsight, we enforce ‘thank you’ more and always forget about the ‘please’. Her manners scored as well as her chinese, by the way, which is something else we have to look into. Anyone’s got recommendations for chinese enrichment classes for pre-nursery kids?
Overall, her teacher was most impressed by Clare’s independence, marvelling at the fact that Clare’s always first to get ready, on her own, when it comes to water play. She also wants to do a lot of things by herself, like going to the toilet and washing her hands, and that just makes me beam with pride because I don’t want Clare to be overly dependent on others to do things when she can very well do it on her own.
Her teacher also noted that Clare has since learned to defend herself. She now holds her own in class and stands up against bullies.
I must also say that I’m very impressed by the level of patience and care the teachers have in this school. Clare’s been diaper free for at least a month now and it’s by no means any credit of mine. When I came back from Bali, one day, Clare decided that she didn’t want to wear diapers anymore. Her father was a little apprehensive about it but I told him that we’ve got to back her up in decisions like this to show that we are confident in her. Since then, she’s had a couple of accidents but that’s mostly because she was having too much fun and only realised her urgency to pee at the last minute.
My little girl is growing in leaps and bounds. She can now hold logical conversations with me and tell me about her day (in bits). I love how she can be headstrong, but is also reasonable. With explanation, she’ll be willing to accept why I say ‘no’ or ‘later’ to certain requests.
She’s also an amazing animal lover: Jaws bit her hand pretty hard last week, which left Clare shocked and crying from the pain. No doubt, having the Princess plaster on her hand made he feel heaps better, but still, she never fails to either pet or hug Jaws every day since.
I relish spending the end of the day with her because that’s our time together, when she wants to be with me, hugging me, before she sleeps.
