Stella All Dressed Up

Today is my first day back at Stella’s. She was waiting for me at the front yard all dressed up for school! She called out for me, rushed up to me and gave me a big hug. As we walked to the front door, I asked if she was going to school. Stella was in full Summer uniform from head to toe. She said, “No but I really want to show you my uniform. I will be wearing this to school soon. Do you like my dress?”

Inside the house, her hardworking dad had already left for work. Her mum was busy clearing the mess in the kitchen. She gave me a warm, friendly hug to welcome me back. She asked if I saw the big girl in her school uniform. It was obvious that she was just as happy as her daughter was about school. When Stella appeared, her mum quickly asked her to show me her big backpack and the little girl rushed down the hallway to retrieve it. She commented on how big the bag is on her little girl. It is pretty big. In fact, her uniform is big too. I think they bought a larger size hoping that they can still be worn again come term 4.

It is tricky buying school clothes that will fit for term 1 and then again in term 4 because the child might have a growth spurt in between. The son of a friend of mine wore his first uniform for one term only. When it was time to wear Summer uniform again in term 4, they were too small and my friend had no option but to buy a new set. I remember how she was worried that he might put on weight over the Summer break and might have to buy more in the new school year. LOL. It is worse if a school has a specific uniform for use in the Prep year only.

Something funny happened when I was at Stella’s. She went to her cupboard of art supplies and retrieved a box containing paper art materials. She reached into the box and pulled out something. I wasn’t paying much attention because I was trying to figure out the painting that Stella’s mum had just started. I thought what I saw was a little rude to be placed on display like this. (The art stations for both mother and daughter are right next to each other.) Stella showed me a little package and said, “Look @#*-@#*, we don’t need to cut Christmas decorations again. Mum bought this for us to make more next time, but Christmas is a long time from now…” I turned to take the package from her for closer inspection and saw that it was a pack of blank bauble shaped cards, all ready to be decorated! Poor Stella had to cut the shapes I traced manually to decorate her Christmas tree when I could have easily bought some of these. LOL. Stella can be very chatty and the next thing I heard coming out of her mouth was: “I won’t get sore hands from cutting those decorations again.” At the time, I thought the cutting exercise was great for Stella but she must have been suffering in silence. LOL. I do agree that the pack of bauble shaped cards will make things easier and because the shapes were pre-cut professionally, I think they will look heaps better too. Why didn’t I think of that? I am now pretty sure that I have seen them in shops before. Stella could have spent more time decorating each rather than cutting each one out with great difficulty. She had trouble cutting the curvy outlines and was quite bothered by the quality of her cutting.