school — Going To NZ — Katie Bromley

Today was the kids’ first day of school. S is in sixth and E is in seventh. They couldn’t wait to get there. I was a little bit surprised by their positive attitudes this morning but I guess I shouldn’t have been. Last night I couldn’t sleep. All my own anxiety and feelings kept surfacing. This morning S was dressed before I even went downstairs to get breakfast going. There was no grumbling, there was no shuffling of the feet or eye-rolling. We were originally going to have them start in term four, which is a month away but watching them over the last couple of weeks we could see that they were missing out on socializing with kids their own age. They’ve really grown closer together during our lockdown in California and then doubly so in our MIQ time here, and I’m so grateful they have each other, but they’ve been missing this part for so long. Especially after doing school remotely over the last year back home.

So we walked the 10 minutes to school and after I left them, they didn’t even look back. I’m sitting at a cafe just past their school. Thinking about how far we have come. It’s been exhausting but I’m thankful for what we have so far and excited for what’s to come.