Olive is Five

The day has finally come. Our baby is five. She has seen a lot of ‘happy last days’ at kindy so she knew what to expect but the concept of not going back to kindy was still a little strange. 

We celebrated her birthday with a few presents in the morning, followed by her happy last day at kindy, where she made her crown, sorted her ‘gifts’ for the other children and chose her besties (Hazel and Sabine) to partake in her little leaving ceremony. After all her farewells to kindy (and for mum) we headed home for lego with Dad. Followed by a simple family dinner of pizza! with Nan and Grandad (giant size pizza) and purple cake with dripping pink icing (a first for mum) a trial run for the big day. We even managed a game of Monopoly, which Iris join in too (got a bit upset when grandad tried to take her last dollars so took more from the bank).

Leading up to this day we have been doing a few school visits per week (as school only started on the 1st of February) a few with mummy and few without for an hour or so. The first time I left her we had tears but they quickly subsided and the following time no tears! There is a first time for everything! It was great from a parents perspective to see what the kids day is made up of and how they teach. I was surprised by how similar the classroom was to kindy, with all the familiar resources on offer to play with. It had a great atmosphere. Winona is Olive’s teacher in Ako 9 which open plan with Ako 10 and they join together for a lot of activities which is a nice way for the children to meet each other. 

Friday was a day of baking and icing ‘the cake’, who knows why there is so much pressure involved in the ‘cake’ but this time I was quite pleased with myself. Go fondant! It was Rapunzel themed with yellow and purple. It was great to have Olive as my helper with a lot of the party preparations which was really fun like wrapping the ‘pass the parcel’, bagging the party bags and winding and plaiting the ‘great Rapunzel hair of wool’ which turned out to be a three person job which daddy proved most effective all the way down the hallway. I discovered Kmart has the cheapest and a huge range of party stuff that you didn’t even know you needed and Ali express had ivy vines to set the scene. 

So Saturday rolled around, after a week of prep work. We hired Sunshine kindy which was the best thing we did, as once we saw a table for 19 kids – we needed the room! The weather held off and most of the kids got into decorating masks as a welcome activity before the pass the parcel, playing on the playground, dancing with balloons, lunch followed by make your own ice cream sundaes (which was a hit). 1pm rolled around and they all left sugar full with takeaway cake and their party bag. Olive looked and felt like a princess. I was so proud of the way she greeted all her friends and enjoyed her special day her way.