first week first year

On Monday morning, Poe's first day back at school I heard him wake Ilo excitedly by announcing he was going to school today, Ilo promptly burst into big sobbing tears, Poe, being Poe quickly tried to placate him; "It's okay Ilo, we will play all afternoon, we still get to sleep together and you can play with Sophie (Poe's doll he has had since he was one) when I am at school". Ilo, gulping back his sobs managed to agree to this but as I came in and looked at his tear streaked face I could feel his misery.

We were all going to miss Poe, holidays, as I may have mentioned before, have been delicious, a delight and so relaxing, bordering at times on laziness, yes it's true. We will miss the chatter between Poe and Ilo (and Lara) as they busy themselves creating all sorts of games, we will miss Poe's hugs and regular "I love you's", we will miss that wondrous laugh of his but will probably be kind of glad to not hear that occasional whiney voice that somehow manages to make heads hurt and ears bleed.

We were all very excited as we drove him up to school and visited his new classroom and greeted his schoolmates and teacher, the wonder and the excitement buzzing amongst the children was a delight to behold. 

This first week back as a big Year One student has been big, tiring but pretty fun by all accounts, Poe comes home with stories each day, his face alight with tales and songs that have been told, games played and lessons learnt. And then on Friday afternoon, Poe sits down at his craft table/desk and gets out an empty drawing book and declares that he will draw every picture that he drew at school that week in this book, so we know what he has been doing and so he does and it is heartbreakingly beautiful, he tells us about each drawing and why it was drawn in class; learning about patterns, James telling a story about a crystal ball, a mountain, a castle. 

And now, today Poe has set up classrooms for Ilo and Lara, he has crayons for them, dolls for students, blackboards (yes it is a Steiner school, so no fancy whiteboards for us) and a bell to ring. He has played school, many a time, but this is different, it is so detailed, so passionate, so clear with intent. 

We are enjoying the slowness of the weekend, time to enjoy each other, space to be alone, the absence of rush. 

Hope you are all having pleasant back to school experiences. 

Lunchbox for day one: 2 x falafels, almond butter wrap, boiled egg with smiley face (not shown), hummus, capsicum and carrot sticks, 2 x plums, 4 cherry tomatoes, a mango to share and three bliss balls. Bliss balls contained dried apricot, tahini, sesame seeds, sunflowers seeds, cashews, spirulina, coconut and cinnamon.
During the week Poe also had some corn chips with guacamole, spinach rolls, purple carrot, yoghurt and tahini, banana and coconut, a wrap with grated cheese, carrot, capsicum and alfalfa sprouts, grapes, apples and a small slice of Jude's apple and berry cake (but I used plums, peaches and nectarines).