First week of 2018 – Jerry starts P1!

The biggest change for the year is actually having a Primary 1 schooling kid. It wrecks instills schedules, requires a lot more planning, and things are getting a little more regimental in the household as compared to the past, where we were slightly more easy and not so sticky about routines.

To be honest, I didn’t quite prep my kid on anything. I did attempt to teach him some money matters – identifying the coins and notes and some adding and subtracting exercises but mostly, I wasn’t too consistent on any of those! I didn’t think he learnt much. Oops.

Just the day before the school started, I was still checking the orientation notes and trying to make sure I read everything necessary and putting names on some of the textbooks and sorting them. I sorta packed them for Jerry and then realised my (over-protective) folly and got Jerry to identify the books required for the first day from the stack that I took out for the first 3 days of school with the book list. Simple exercise, but guess he gets to know which book is which. I repeated the same exercise for day 2 and day 3 as well.. and subsequently, made him write his own name and his class on the books. He can spell his class name by heart now.

I spent some time before bedtime talking to Jerry about his possible new experiences – making new friends, buying his own food from the canteen, having to handle money, what to do if he is being bullied, how to get help from teachers, learning his way around the school, and mostly, being more independent and vocal about his needs. He doesn’t have any kindergarten friends in his class, although there is 4 other kids that are in other classes in the same school. We were just chit chatting randomly and the poor kid misses his friends very much.

I also made  a short “To-do” list for Jerry and have him check against it in the morning. I told him it is his responsibility to get everything ready for school based on the list and the parents will not be reminding him to do anything  (saves us from nagging and frustration!). I just quickly scribbled a short list on a chalk board and left it hanging in the living room wall for him to refer to. He did need a little prodding on the first day on the list, but on the subsequent days, it was 2nd nature to him although he kinda struggles with wearing the watch himself.

P.s. I added an additional liner on bringing tissue paper on day 2 in case he needed it to clean snot or something!

So, how did we do?

Day 1 of school: 

We got the kid up at 6.30am and daddy changed him into his uniform (to my horror), but it’s a learning curve for everyone I guess. Kid eats cereal for breakfast. Kid refers to to-do list with some help. Daddy changes Jerome (who is still sleeping!) and we are out of the house at 7am! Jerry took a longer time to wear his shoes though. Carried his own bag and told me it’s heavy! Brought his fidget spinner along with him. Looking happy in general.

Daddy drops us at school gate and sent Jerome to his school. Here’s a selfie of us, before entering the school! And no, I didn’t offer to carry his bag for him.

I walked Jerry into his school compound and left him at the foyer area where all the P1s were gathering according to their classes and just said, “Bye!”, and proceeded to sit in the canteen (not sure for what, but all the parents were there so I thought I needed to be there too!). The kids were subsequently led into the school hall and the teachers told the parents to dismiss and come back during recess. And there, we are done for the morning. I felt a little strange – no drama, no fuss, nothing to worry about.. NOTHING to do. Hmm. Headed back to my mum’s place and took a short nap.

Recess came and it was like viewing a zoo exhibit… except that some parents were kinda over zealous and sorta pushed other parents in a bid to get a better view. I wonder why they can’t just chill. I was pushed behind a wall literally by another mum. It was just tough standing for half an hr and getting pushed around so I just took some glimpses, took some pictures and went to chill on a school bench. LOL. Jerry had a small cup mashed potato for lunch for just 60 cents. He got left behind by his buddy though (who ran off to buy his own food) and the teachers were asking around who was his buddy! The boy just calmly sat on the canteen table and waited for the buddy to return, before heading to buy food. After food, buddy brought him around to walk the school compound and we lost sight of him and headed home.

When I picked the kid up at 1.30pm, he was happily chatting with his kindergarten classmate at the gate, while waiting for me to appear before the teacher actually releases him. I guess Day 1 went well!

All we had was a really hungry kid for lunch.. We spent the afternoon shopping around and Der went to pick Jerome up from school while I went through with Jerry on packing his bag for the 2nd day. We also started this routine of emptying out his wallet, asking him how much he has spent for the day and how much was left in the wallet… and gave him a piggy bank to drop his savings into. Hopefully that helps in his calculation of money in the coming days.

Both kids slept before 9.30pm at night with no fuss. YAY.

Day 2 of school: 

Same old routine as Day 1. But I made sure that Jerry wears his own uniform himself. There was a parents talk happening so Der & me headed to the talk after we dropped Jerry off. I was so tired I dozed off several times during the talk. The 6.30am waking up is killing me instead. Then recess. Same zoo experience. Jerry had a different buddy this time round and he seems quite clueless. For a long while, the both of them were just standing in the crowd, not doing anything, clueless. The buddy needed training too! Jerry decided to eat the mash potato (again!) and this time round, bought a packet of green tea as well. While eating, Jerry left his wallet on the table… and I was telling Der that he might leave it on the table…. and he did. Thankfully, the teachers noticed and was asking around and he happened to be still in the vicinity so he got his wallet back after about 5 mins (felt like eternity to me).

We left thereafter and didn’t pick him up from school. His grandpa did. I did ask him about him losing his wallet back home in the evenings and what he should have done to prevent it in the future though. I guess it’s a good thing it happened and we could talk about it. I enquired about the choice of food and he didn’t know what was selling so he ate back the same thing. Apparently the buddy didn’t tell him.. so I told him the stall had his favourite chicken rice. Packed bag for day 3 and the kid was off to bed!

Day 3 of school: 

I didn’t go. Der dropped him off and left. Jerry had chicken rice for lunch! Nothing eventful I guess.

Day 4 of school: 

Der dropped him off the same. Jerry had mashed potato again! Nothing interesting to report otherwise.

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And there, we survived the first week of Primary 1, with no drama at all. Is this like normal? I read a lot more interesting stories from fellow mums with their primary 1 schoolers.

Meanwhile, here’s the routine in the household now.

6am – Daddy wakes and wash up
6.30am – Daddy wakes Jerry up. Jerry washes up and changes into his uniform. Daddy preps Jerome for school.
6.40am – Jerry eats cereal for breakfast (he seemed to want cereal every day). I wake and sit around to send the kids off to school.
6.50am – Jerry checks his list and preps. Wears his shoes when done.
7am – The kids and der leaves! I flop back into bed for another hr+ of snooze.
8.20am – I wake and go about my day.
1.30-2pm – Jerry ends school and my in-laws pick him up and feed him lunch. He showers and either does his music homework or just play games/watch youtube if there is no music homework.
5pm – My mum picks Jerome from school.
8pm – Der comes home from work and picks both kids up from my mum’s and in-laws’.
8.30pm – They reaches home and the adults have dinner while the kids get a bit of play time in their playroom. I go through with Jerry his school bag for any documentation that needs signing or any thing that needs to be done after my dinner.
9pm – Change into jammies and prep for bed.
10pm – Kids are usually asleep and I get my me-time to surf net or play random games at this time.

Rinse and repeat, every week day. 

Let’s see how it goes for the next few weeks. I’ll do an update if there is a routine change! Meanwhile, the kids started swimming lessons yesterday. I shall blog about it when I find the time…!

Edit: P.s. I forgot to write this… while Jerry is coping well with the new routine… Jerome a is total trooper too! He went school without his brother for the first time and there was no tears from him too! We did warn him that Jerry is going to another school in the new year and he was sad and was on the verge of tears during the December month. But when the actual day happened! He just waved the brother good bye and went.. “See you later Jerry!”. Aww…..