Budgeting (State) School – got your booklist?

I know..! No need to shriek how much I would pay for a private school.
Because honestly, I don’t care. Although I am sure, there are some awesome schools out there, I am by principle against the idea that your wallet should decide over the quality of your education.
Having grown up in a country where private schools were much rarer and going to your local primary (state) school was the norm for everyone, it is hard for me to comprehend how a country would allow schools with religious or other elitist concepts be responsible to train and care for a part of their youth, while others have to “make do” with the free State Schools.

My boy gives me kisses. Lots of kisses.

There is a thing I love about my boy : he’s generous with kisses.

And I know that won’t last. So I enjoy it while it’s still happening.

After living in kiss-country France for a good while, I have made a point to encourage at least the good night hug and kisses for my husband AND his teenage step siblings (i know they hate it but i think it’s good for them although it passes the germs around a bit faster too). But he will also easily kiss other people that are in our life and get close to him. We have managed to direct those kisses more towards the cheeks of people, ever since a 92 year old lady in a nursery home exclaimed after an ‘attack’ of my then 3 year old “Oh dear boy, be careful, you don’t know where my mouth has been !”

My boy has tried kissing girls on the playground, with various success. Fortunately, the mother’s of so harassed girls were either touched by the gesture or missed it. I couldn’t have handled any negative remark about it. (I copped a lot of crap from a mum of a tiny toddler once whom he was hugging and carrying around a bit. It’s better than throwing sand, no ??)

He told me this week that in kindy “hugging is ok, but kissing is not allowed”. He sounded a bit disappointed. I am obviously fine with this, and i think it includes both, the other children and the bunch of more or less butch ‘teachers’ he spends his days with. It’s a wild boy-dominated group of kids and some hugging will do them good at times. And after an accident, I reckon a hug is as powerful as a bandaid with a superhero picture.

In the evening, my boy and me,  we have a ritual – just one of the many to delay me from leaving his room at bedtime – that consists in sending kisses that ‘flutter’ to the other who has to catch it (think “Roger Rabbit” movie when the hot Jessica blows some cartoon lips flying to the detective..). It’s a cute silly game we play. It can take a while and ends in a crazy bombardment of kisses from the bed to the doorframe.

Now my boy starts (prep) school in January. I’ll bring him to school like I bring him to kindy today. While he usually runs off to play quite eagerly  in the morning, my arrival in the afternoon brings on a shrill “Mamiiii!” often followed by a “I missed you so!!!” (really, sometimes I wonder if the teachers think I trained him to say that..) and he’ll run into my arms for a hug and a kiss. It’s our “Little House in the Prairie” moment really.

But with school coming up,  I am starting to wonder if he will be looked at weirdly (and me too, for that matter) because boys are really boys in Australia it seems to me… I don’t want my son to be branded a mommy’s boy by other 5year olds. But I also don’t want him to stop the kisses because I know he will anyway.

How should I handle this, considering that we both don’t want to give it up yet but as much as it is expression of our connection with each other, I don’t want it to  get back on him in the form of some silly remarks by his class mate, or worse, older kids..  How much kissing is too much ??

One sting – two stories.

When I picked up my son at kindy today, one of the teachers called out to me and informed me that he had been “stung at the knee by an ant during afternoon tea” (that’s like a snack they have in the afternoon, where nobody actually drinks tea).

Apparently, he had cried a little but he was ok now. It still looked a bit swollen and red, but they had put an ice pack on it, and it was an hour ago now. They had also made sure, it did not go up his pants. Good.

This is Australia, and Insect bites have to be taken seriously, but we have both made our experiences with big angry ants already, it surely hurts, but if you are not allergic, you’ll get over it.

We picked up his stuff and walked to the car, chatting. Here is what my boy had to say about the incident.

“Yeah, they wanted to know what stinged me and I did not know and then they took of my pants and I was crying and they were shaking the pants but we could not find the bug and then they put an icepack on it. And they were still looking for it. But we did not find it. “

“.. ah?” .. A bug? And.. Nobody actually saw what it was? Argh. So not a good thing in Australia when a child and a stung knee are involved. And especially when you haven’t grown up among deadly spiders, snakes and sharks yourself, and are still.. somewhat easy to scare ?

I’m glad I did not know all that before the swelling went away.
I’m a bit pissed off at the teachers to tell me there was an ant when there wasn’t.