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Wednesday 9 January 2013

Moving adventures for kids

It's a beautiful morning today, and we have just got back from walking/scooting/ biking to school.  The birds are enjoying the break from the rain as much as we are, and are flying about all over the place, and we got to enjoy a colourful sunrise on our way to school.  I am having trouble with formatting today, so it's taking me a while to make this look OK.  I hope it works!  Do you have these problems with blogger sometimes?  It's the first time it's happened to me!  Walking to school is such a great thing to do, even though I feel like I can't be bothered, it leaves us all feeling happier for the rest of the day!  The children were fantastic this morning, helping each other get ready, and get to school on time.  We are very lucky to have three clever, funny, and kind children (there's the big girl, to the right).  They are being fantastic about moving house, but they are worried about it.  It's costing us all sleep!

The last time we moved was two years ago, when they were 5, 3, and a few months, and for the girls it was no problem, but it was hard for the boy.  He had built up strong friendships down in Suffolk (with boys he still counts as friends), and had a hard time making new friends here.  They were a great bunch of boys at his school, but they already had friends, and it took a while for him to feel happy.  

This time we are moving to a place we all know, a bit at least.  Kenny's parents live nearby, and the children are really looking forward to seeing more of them.  I am too!  We have never close enough to relatives to have occasional babysitters, and I haven't been able to do much by myself since becoming a Mum.  I wouldn't expect them to do very much, but just having a possible backup will be marvellous!  We'll also be living in a town with lots of things to do - like a swimming pool, a beach, parks, and great sports facilities, plus a train, so we can easily escape for the day to the big smoke!

On top of all that, we'll only be a couple of hours away from where we live now, so the kids will be able to visit their friends, and have them come to visit too.

I'm hoping all of those good things will make it easier this time.  But it's still going to be hard, of course.  The boy has built up friendships here now, and he is doing very well at school.  He's going to make new friends at the new school, and do well there too, but it will take time.  I'm not worried about the little girl (pictured with her favourite brother below - she's the one with eyes like a pod person).  She can't even remember her friends' names half the time.  The person I'm really worried about is the big girl.


The big girl has made some marvellous friends in rainy town (she's pictured with some of them below), and she's settled in well to Primary 1, after a fantastic transition process from nursery.  She's a great wet lettuce on the inside, but here she seems so confident.  I'm really proud of how well she's doing, and I know it's going to be incredibly hard for her to start again.  We're trying to sweeten the deal for her a bit.  She shares a room with the little girl at the moment, and is driven mad by her chattering away while she's trying to get to sleep, and her constantly messing the place up.  No one can share with the boy because he gets up at an ungodly hour, and then starts bouncing, so she's had to put up with her, but when we move, she's going to get the second bedroom.  It is much bigger than the other kids' bedrooms.  She is rather pleased about this, but mainly she's worried.

The boy, the big girl, and I are all worried - we're having nightmares, and other sleep problems, and we're all being particularly tetchy. The sooner we get the job done the better.

On Monday we went to visit the school the kids will be going to in seaside town.  I was incredibly nervous about it and the kids were pretty out of sorts so I guess they were too.  It took me ages to decide where to park, so we had to hurry in to the school, and oh my goodness, it was lovely.

It was colourful, it had stuff the kids had made all over the place.  There were lots of cushions on the settle in the reception, in the bizarre school colours (blue, orange and grey!), and then the headie and deputy came out to meet us, and spoke to the children first.  They were wearing nice, comfortable, smart-casual clothes, as were the teachers for the most part.  The headie showed us 'round and the children were respectful, interested, and encouraged to have their say.  There is a school uniform (in the school colours!), but it looked to be pretty loose.  I hate school uniform, but it seems to be inevitable in Scotland, so I was glad to see a school that seemed pretty relaxed about it.  Generally I loved the school.  The boy and the big girl were taken to their respective classes-to-be, and the boy's teacher had a chat with him (she's about 12, so hopefully will have lots of fun ideas).  The boys in his future class were very interested in him, and he said he'd seen someone he thought he'd like to be friends with (longer hair, so no surprises there rock fans), so I'm excited about how he's going to do.  But the girl noticed that the kids in her class were ahead of her in their reading books, and there's a lot of people in the class (it's too big for a single class, but they've decided to keep it as one class, but have two teachers in it, which looks like a great plan to me, but is a bit daunting to her).  I'm worried about her, but I do think she's a wonderful girl, and she'll make friends if she'll let people in, it's just that when she's worried she shuts down.  I hope she can get all the support she'll need.

So, do you have any ideas?  How can we make moving easier for the big girl?  For everybody? How can we get a better night's sleep?

Next time I should hopefully have an update on how things are going with the missives, and if not, I might just get over-excited about decorating again!

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