Entering A New School Year; Amidst COVID-19
It was a beautiful, breezy and lazy Monday. The children spent their morning reading, immersed in the wacky world of uh-hmmm Captain Underpants. I glanced at the calendar and realised we haven't had our 2021 school books settled. How is it there's only just three more weeks of holidays? A quick decision to drop by the school's bookshop was made.
On route to school, I, the mommy photographer, placed a mental note to document Ewan and Faye around different parts of this school which they will spend their foundational years in. Hopefully, one they'd have many fond memories of with best friends and favourite teachers.
What a year 2020 had been for the children with COVID-19 in the foreground. What a terrible year it will be for parents whose first-borns are entering Primary One in 2021. What used to be an exciting three days of neck-craning to catch our child at the canteen during recess will now be stripped off us. Or those privileged opportunities we as parents should have been given to see our big boy/girl in their new classrooms. All because of this taboo word - Safe Distancing.
Our children have to grow up overnight whether they like it or not. And we, will have to accept that nonetheless. I have no doubt Faye will rock her first day at school. Yet I as her mommy, still wishes to be part of her first day; to be present and to be somehow around.
Because of COVID-19, there will levels will not be mixed during recess. Because of COVID-19, there may not be a buddy system for the Primary One-ers either. Man.... the kids will have to wear masks to school for six whole hours every day. Although nothing is set in stone yet because the situation is every-changing, the possibility of a vaccine before the year ends looks bleak as of now.
Faye wrote casually somewhere on a paper once that she is sad she will not be able to see her brother in Primary School because of COVID. That was all she was looking forward to - to see Ewan at school. She wished he could have been her buddy or at least catch a glimpse of him at recess, in the field or at the library. Well at least, from our visit to the bookshop today, he managed to show her how to call daddy or mommy from the school's payphone! They played catch and he started to teach her naughty things like climbing the fence *haha*
This would probably be the only time they'd be together at school playing catch until COVID is over! Today. The day I brought them both to the school bookshop to buy textbooks.
I could have just purchased the books online and have them delivered to our doorstep. It is so much easier for me since we are getting two levels worth of books. However, I wholeheartedly believe that the experience of being there at the bookshop in person will show the children a different side of life. That life isn't just a tap on the phone to make payment or a click on the mouse to confirm a delivery. Life is paper and pen, hardships and sweat. It is okay to let them sweat a little helping mommy carry books to lighten her load without me asking.
To have an older sibling in the same school probably makes it less daunting for the little one. It is also nice to know that if one of them gets into trouble, they've got family in the same premise to depend on. To share the same school hall, listening to the same speech, watching the same performance and witnessing award ceremonies with probably your brother on sister on stage sound like it can create a deep-seated connection between siblings.
Maybe I am thinking too much. Maybe it doesn't matter at all. I do not know because I am an only child and I never had a sibling to share anything with. Probably also the reason why I feel strongly about creating opportunities for Ewan and Faye to strengthen their relationship through little things like these. One of my goals is to create a strong relationship between them. That they know they've got each other to depend on when mom and dad are no longer around for them.
When I was in my tween, friends were my everything. My grandmother told me, "Your friends are you life now but they often will go away; one by one. But your family will never leave you. No Matter What."
COVID, we have learnt so much from your existence. Even though you robbed the childhood off many of our children, you have also presented us the gift of grit.
However the new school year would turn out to be, it will still be a milestone for many of us with our children going Kindergarten or Primary School or Secondary School for the first time.
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