Her Primary One Adventures

A full quarter had passed, and Little Bee had just enjoyed her very first one-week March break in primary 1. She seemed to have adjusted really well in primary school, much to my relief. My biggest worry was that she would not be able to wake up at the unearthly hour of 6am, but she had proven me wrong (despite some episodes of her lolling around on bed, chanting incessantly "I am very tired", poor girl!).

Recess Bento Boxes
The days in primary school start much earlier these days for me. I am no longer living in a place within walking distance of the girls' school, so they now take the school bus which would fetch them at 6.30am. So, I tend to wake up at 5.30am to make bento boxes for Little Bee, who is always a very picky eater. These bento boxes can range from really simple ones to fairly fun ones which I enjoyed preparing.

Some of the bentos that I enjoyed making...

Social Life In School
Little Bee had always been a super gregarious social princess, so it comes as no surprise to me that she has plenty of friends, and she goes for recess with a big bunch of friends.

She had also adjusted well to her CCAs. She is part of a Chinese CCA (I put her there to cultivate her love for the language, and it seemed to be working!) and is also in Gymnastics. Recently, I received a slip from the school, informing me that Little Bee had been selected to go into the training development squad of the school team because they see potential in her. After some serious discussions with Hubby, we decided to forgo this opportunity for her because there are just too many practices, and I feel that Little Bee needs more time to rest at this stage of her young life. Ha, as you can tell, I am no tiger mother at all!

My Little Independent Girl!
Finally, what amazes me was her atypical responsibility in doing her homework and informing me about worksheets or notices that I needed to sign. Little Bee in kindergarten life was someone who needed a lot of supervision and monitoring with regards to academic work. But she had since transformed!

I guess she is developing the Big Bee syndrome - a syndrome of "Oh my god, my mum is really blur, so I'd better make sure I tell her what to do!"

Secretly, though, I find this approach (of me being blur, and not monitoring their work much) to be working really well with my girls - inadvertently, to say the least. I am usually very busy at work, and by the time I am back at home, I am usually exhausted, and all I can do is to spend a swift couple of hours with them over dinner and chilling around, sometimes without looking through what their homework is. Little Bee was initially very dependent on me, but after a few incidents where I forgot to sign her worksheets, thereby resulting in her being reprimanded by her teachers, she learned to be independent and take charge of her own schoolwork, which is really what I wanted for them! These days, she would remind me of what worksheets to sign, and would finish her homework by herself in the afternoon. So, I think it pays to be a blur mum like me, because it fosters lots of independence in the kids!

I will continue to blog about her adventures in primary one in time to come, but I thought I would like to share this little journal entry by Little Bee on her first day of school - which shows her excitement and beautiful optimism. I hope this optimism and zeal shines brightly for a long long time :)