Just an update

I've been slack with updating the blog...

Things are going well for Ella at daycare and even better at school. She will still tell everyone who asks that the thing she likes best at school is that (all together now) "they letted us choose if we want to play inside or outside". I tell you, the teacher is more cunning than I could ever be. The inside/outside play is pretty much the ONLY choice she will let them make and they are forever grateful for it and she is the nicest teacher in the whole wide world. The thought that she can choose if she plays inside or outside at home every single day never occurred to her. Hehe.

But the most cunning plot is the "Dead Donkeys game". Ella told me last week that she wanted to finish her wrap at lunchtime, but she couldn't because she wanted to play Dead Donkeys.

The game goes as follows (Ella's description):

You have to lie down on the floor.
You must not wiggle or move.
If you move you have to sit up.
Who doesn't move gets a clap.

I've always called it rest time, which is a really, really silly name for the Dead Donkeys game I realise now!

Anyway, I'm sure this is not the first time I will be amazed at what Ella will do in school which she would never do for me at home and it's how it should be. She has more important things to do at school than to engage in endless negotiations and battles about the nitty gritty. That's what home is for, not?

But today I dropped her off at daycare. And she was feeling very sorry for herself because she has a cold. I told her about 5 times this morning that if she was really sick she could go to bed and stay there, if she didn't then I did not want to hear anymore whingeing about feeling sick. I got told 5 times that I should really, really try to be nicer to her. I replied 5 times that it's not my job to be nice. The socially unattractive quality of self-pity got mentioned a few times too. I hope tomorrow morning will be a more harmonious one. And it may be time for me to revisit the chapter on teaching empathy by example in my book on teaching kids values?

And today or tomorrow we will hopefully finally meet Ella's godmother's Canadian love, Fred, for the first time. I jokingly suggested to Ella that we'd heard so much about him, but we'd never seen him, so what if he wasn't actually real? Ella replied: "I believe in Fred. [pause] But I don't believe in god."

Amen.