School Days

We are only 2 weeks into the new year, but it feels like ages. We have had a really good 2 weeks and been very busy! 'School' started on January 4th here in Singapore. We were trying to get Alex enrolled into the local nursery which is just across the road from our condo as a friend of his from the building was going to be attending there. On day 1, they told me they were full but that we could probably get a space, they just needed to wait to see if they had any places that weren't taken by people who enrolled but then decided for one reason or another not to send their kids there. On Thursday I went over to enquire again and found out that Alex could get in, so that was very exciting as he really wanted to go to school with Lilah - his little friend from the condo. So, on Friday, he got dressed in his brand new sports uniform (which is for Fridays and excursion days) and Gary and I took him across to school. As Gary and I were checking to see he was ok, he was firmly engrossed in a project with ice cream sticks, so I'm sure he was fine. He seemed to have a lot of
fun.



This week has been his first full week there. He goes at 8:30 in the morning for 3 hours. Every day when I pick Alex up, he is very happy and seems to really like it. I say, "What did you do today Alex?" "I played". "Good, did you learn Chinese?" "Yes" "What did you learn?" "Chinese". OK - he is having fun and likes his class and his teacher - he informed me on Monday that he needed to go to school to see 'all of my friends' so it is really nice that he seems to enjoy it. They do learn Chinese every day as well as English. There is a mix of nationalities in his class, a few of them also live in our building so that is really nice for him.



Tara has gone from crawling a lot of the time and walking some of the time to walking pretty much all of the time. I am still surprised to see her walking - she however is delighted with herself and is learning to move quite quickly. She delights in her brother and yesterday when Alex was asleep and Tara should have been asleep, she went and banged on his door. She has taken to nodding and shaking her head, in answer to all sorts of questions. She has an opinion on everything. I was having a joke with Alex telling him he had to eat vegemite as he's Australian. Now if we ask Tara if she's British - she will shake her head and nod vigourously when asked is she's Australian.



Ann is due back from Bangkok tomorrow - she will be back with us for 2 weeks before heading back to England. Alex and Tara are looking forward to seeing Granny Ann and especially to helping her eat her birthday cake.