In the blink of an eye, Rynus has been attending full day childcare for a month since July 01!The 2nd child syndrome has hit me really hard this time when I read our blog posts about Renzo's experience when he first started attending half day childcare, and eventually moved on to full day care. With our first child Renzo, we were exuberant and did everything right (or at least tried to do everything right), naturally we felt everything is new, every experience is unique, we were driven to capture every moment, to applaud every achievement, and to generally create most beautiful memories with the apple of our eyes. Then, when Rynus arrived, the experience isn't so new. We've been there, done that. Though we seem to have taken more pictures of him (for the very fact that he's more photogenic and the megapixels on our phone camera doubled since Renzo's time), the every first of his was not as joyful and exciting as Renzo's, somehow.
But still, I took 3 days of annual leave to accompany Rynus to school, and tried to figure out a daily routine for everyone in the house. After about 1-2 weeks of experiment, and adjustment, the boys start to wake up daily at about 6:30am, Daddy Chan then drives them to school and our helper sends them up and stays a little longer with Rynus in the classroom till he settles down. At night, I rush down from my work place to pick the boys up, and takes a taxi home together. This is not the most economical solution for sure as the short taxi ride during peek hour usually costs S$7-S$8 bucks daily. But we are glad that we can handle them without involving the grandparents and helper, so that they could focus on their own stuff and have more time for themselves instead. And most importantly, the boys are having a better daily routine now, which allows them to have their dinner prepared by our helper right after school, and spend more time in the evening to play and study together with us.So how did Rynus do in school?
Well let's first take a look at teachers' feedback about Renzo 3 years ago.
Teacher's feedback: "Pretty good, getting better, on and off cries for his auntie Ayeaye, but plays well with his friends and enjoys music & dance time to the fullest. Learning to eat on his own at the same table with other kids but very quiet and do not speak much."
And now for Rynus (I feel awesome to have received feedback about Rynus from the same group of teachers, who still remember about their experience with Renzo in the past)
Teacher's feedback: "Really enjoys music & dance time to the fullest. Eats well on his own, doesn't cry much but doesn't like to be touched by others. Behaving ok as long as he's not throwing tantrums."
I know most of Rynus' classmates (including his 5-days-younger cousin) are adapting well in school. So he's probably the only one giving most of the headaches to his teachers. But I still feel very proud of him for being able to stay in school for a whole day now and nap there daily while snuggling his little penguin. To think the transition period from half to full day was a few months for Renzo. And most importantly, Rynus didn't really fall sick (at least not very sick to the extend that he needs to stop school for days) like Renzo did during the first month. The fact is Renzo started school at 19 months whereas Rynus only started at 25 months, so his immunity system should be stronger anyway. Unfortunately, he still caught some bugs and was having diarrhea and runny nose recently. He's not fully recovered yet but he didn't skip a single day of school for a full month, yeah!!!After all, I've already seen great improvement in him since he started school. He's still not able to express himself much, but he likes to follow whatever we say nowadays and his articulation is almost as good as Renzo's!! And seeing both of them holding hands together and skipping to me in joy every evening at school, is really the best reward I get after a day of hard work!
