Proud of my big girl

Wow! January just flew by. It was such a busy month for us. My brother got engaged and my brother-in-law got married. H1 was the flower girl.

My big girl started school and has taken to it like a duck to water. She loves the fact that it's an all girls' school, maybe because her biggest complain during pre-school was that Ashen and Shehadu hit or pinched her. Little girls tend to be less aggressive noh?
According to BBC's Child of our time one of the questions for parent's goes as this:
We all want to be popular but for a five year old, friendships can seem very fickle. From the following options, what do you think would give a child a head start in the popularity stakes at school?
a)  Develop their imagination
b)  Help them to be well-presented and make the most of their looks
 c) Enourage them to take up lots of hobbies

and the correct answer is b. Forget 5 year old's. Isn't this true for most adults as well. We all want to be seen with the prettiest thing. I remember the way I used to think as a kid. I wanted to be friends with the girl who had the prettiest things as well. So, I made sure that H1 had all pinky, frilly, girly stuff. Pink bag, bottle, lunchbox, pencil box, apron, you name it, we've got it in pink!

I shouldn't have worried. She's doing fine. I am so proud of her.

On the very first day, parent's weren't allowed to stay on. I took her to the class and the teacher asked her to sit where ever she wanted. I think it helped in making H1 instantly popular that H2 went along because everyone was interested in the baby, including the teacher, and I think H1 got to shine in her glory ;) H1 was OK with us leaving and when we asked her to come back in the school van by her self, for the first time, she was OK with that too. We followed the van home though. I am so proud of my brave girl.

On the second day, hubs took her to school, and they were asked to go through a different gate and he was told that he cannot accompany H1 to her class. The poor thing was left to find her class, which was on a second story, all by her self. Believe me, this is no easy task. There are fourteen Grade 1 classes alone in that school. But H1 was OK with that too. When I asked her how she did it, she said, "I went up one building and it wasn't there, then I went up another and it wasn't there. Then I thought of looking for my name and my class name on the door. In each class there was a pretty wall deco with the kids names in each class and H1 had gone searching for her name. Isn't that clever? A five year old me would have just sat down and cried till someone took me to my class. So yes, I am so so proud of my big girl.

H1 is not very fluent in Singhala yet, but it's amazing to see how she manages. She says she looks at what the other kids do and just follow suit. Once they were asked to bring different types of seeds and leaves for arts and crafts. She says she just saw the other kids give the leaves to the teacher and she just gave hers and brought back the seeds home. She didn't know that seeds were called 'ata' you see. But she is doing fine. Yesterday she sang a Singhala kids song all by her self. She sings out loud the parts she knows and mumbles the parts she doesn't. She manages beautifully to appear as if she knows the whole song well. I am so proud of that girl.

She can't remember half the names of the kids in her class what with parent's giving their kids the most tongue twisting 'trendy' names. H1 says she just calls them 'Mey Aaluwa'. I think she means 'Yaaluwa' which means friend in Sinhala, but that's close enough don't you think?

Yep, I am one proud mom, I am. My big girl is growing up!