Eloïse has completed her first full week at primary school and enjoyed every minute of it. She has greeted the start of each new day with enthusiasm and excitement, which has proved quite contagious.
We’re all slowly getting used to the new 07:00 starts, but it’s still strange to find oneself falling asleep on the couch at midnight and having to go to bed. Nevertheless, we’ve already fallen into a default new routine.
The Sonos alarm wakes us with BBC Radio 6 at 07:00 (there are no good Dutch radio stations, unfortunately), at which point we all get up.
Sarah dresses the children while I go downstairs, prepare Eloïse’s breakfast and make coffee. Sarah then comes down with the children and makes Eloïse’s lunch.
At around 08:10, I get on the bakfiets and take both children with me to school. Sometimes Sarah goes with me, especially the first few days, but the general case will be that only one of us goes. The person who goes takes both children, in order to give the other parent a bit of a breather. It’s only half an hour before I’m back with Little Lu, but you have to take what you can get and every little helps.
At 12:50, I head out again, once again with Lukie in tow, to pick up our happy girl. She’s always smiling, happy to see me and full of tales of the morning’s events.
This morning, for example, saw Eloïse have her first eurhythmy lesson. She described it as praatdansen (talk-dancing), but I couldn’t get much more out of her than that.
At this stage, we couldn’t be happier with Eloïse’s progress at her new school. Not only does she really enjoy the lessons (if you can call them that) and the juf, she’s already made a good friend in Bracha, another new girl who started the same day as she. It can’t be long now before they’re inviting each other over after school.
And now it’s the weekend: no more 07:00 starts for two whole days!