Can't believe our little Ate is now in a big school.  She's both excited and anxious on her first day.  Good thing this song from Elena of Avalor boosted her confidence:

Elena:
A new school can be scary at first 
With unfamiliar faces
New rules, new teachers
And lots of unknown faces
But school's just a new world of problems 
Puzzles for you to solve
So you don't have to worry
There's nothing you can't resolve...

What's more encouraging is that she has her little sister Cassandra by her side.

The little Ate Cassandra showing Ate Amanda their Lego figures that they built.  They already have names for each of the characters.

And of course, the bunso was there to support her big Ate.

A great shot by Mommy Cali while Ate Amanda goes to the gate.

Entering the room, she saw her name tag on the table and quietly sat down on her seat.  As a parent, you can observe different personalities of each kids in the room.  Some are restless, some are quiet and some are just observing as everything seem to be new to them.

Then it was time for parents the go out of the room but before leaving we said "bye Ate and see you later".

On our way out, little Ate Cassandra requested for a picture with Rapunzel.  This is a rare picture of her smiling.

It was a great experience for us parents to have one of our kids go to a big school.  Here are some things I realized: 

1. Facing Fears - In life, we face a lot of challenges where there are a lot of unknowns yet we have to brave through it in order to grow.  Nelson Mandela said "...courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it".  And this was what Amanda did to bring up her life skill a notch higher. 
2. Lifelong Learning - When I was studying, I was used to cramming and playing the school game in order to get good grades... Hopefully that changes with my children so they would go to school because of learning and not because of grades. 
3. Changing Times - I was used to OHPs when I was in College, but now Amanda has LED screen in their room.  Well, regardless of the technology, what's important is on how the lessons come across the students.  Even if Augment Reality becomes a basic educational tool in the future, what's vital is that kids learn faster and better.

Last week, it was Champee's first time to go to school. Like other parents, we tried our very best to prepare her for the big day.

The plan was simple, that is to allow Champee to take a good rest on Sunday and then go up early in the morning to prepare to go to school.

Murphy's law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Since we came from a very long weekend for the Holy Week, our simple plan got derailed.  We still went out that Sunday to maximize our time with our Cebu visitors.  Even our plan for that day didn't happen the way we liked it as well.  We're supposed to go to mass first, do the zip line and then go for a good dinner in Tagaytay. 

What happened was, we got late for the mass in Tagaytay so we went out for a quick snack in mushroom burger.  Good thing there's a nice playground there, making Champee super happy with the swing.  Then we went to the Picnic Grove for zipline.  We're expecting a lot of people going there since it's Easter, but wasn't expecting that there would be a mega-rally-like crowd.  The people plus the blazing hot temperature equals not a relaxing vacation.  So we ended up in a Starbucks nearby traveling miles away from home just to go to drink coffee.  We ended the trip by going to mass at the Pink Sisters Convent and then went back home to have dinner at the Festival Mall in Alabang.

The plan to take a rest on Sunday, didn't materialize.  We even had to get up early on Monday by 5 AM from Cavite to bring our guests (Tita Tei and Tito Kevin) to the airport and then head to Champee's school in Pasig for her first day.  Although she just slept the whole road trip, it's still tiring for a three-year-old baby.

We were expecting a cranky girl when she woke up, but it was a miracle that she's excited to go to school and her mood was at an all-time high.  Upon entering her school, she immediately hold her teacher's hand and went inside the room for their group activity.  What's good was that she found a new favorite dance called the "Gummy Bear" and it was cute and fun watching her do the moves (see the YouTube video below)

First Day of School Learning: Vision.
When Champee went up to us saying that she wants to go to school, we were sure she's going to do good on her first day. Why? Simply because she developed that vision for herself.  A goal that she wanted to do even without anyone forcing her.  I'm sure she was influenced by Hi 5, Barney and Murray had a Little Lamb that sparked that idea in her young mind.  So big thanks to the Disney Junior and YouTube for these great influencers :)  But still she was able to hold on to that vision of finally going to school.

And from that time, we scouted for nearby preschools where she can grow more mentally, physically and spiritually.  After months of research we chose the Mother Goose Playskool in Greenwoods, just three kilometers away from our castle (btw this is just Champee's name for our tiny condo unit, very far from being a castle).  Apart from good reviews, it was the rapport that teacher UK (pardon my spelling mam if you're reading this) built with Champee so that convinced us to enroll for summer school.

First Week of School Learning: Good habits build a character.
As I begin to recall my past experiences, I was able to observe that all first days of any event becomes either extremely good or extremely bad.  But definitely majority of them are good or even best experiences. And when you look at the output at the end of the activity or project, the first days may have a good impact but the first attempt doesn't dictate the outcome of any activity/project.  What matters are the succeeding days if they were consistently good enough to arrive at the outcome I wanted.  

Going back to Champee's schooling, we were happy with her first day.  But I was quite anxious as to how we can make it through the succeeding days of replicating the good things that happened on her first day.  As with NASA's Convex Goggles experiment, it will take 21 consecutive days to develop a habit.  Meaning if we have that great first day, multiply it by 21 times, we can be assured to have a great schooling experience for Champee that could possibly last a lifetime.

All the while, I just thought that we're sending Champee to school to learn.  Unknowingly, I think it was me who's learning more as we found more things to fix on my fatherhood as far as sleeping routine, time management, patience, sacrifice, commitment and love.

Sleeping routine - irregardless of how late I went home for work, I needed to get up before six to prepare not just breakfast now, but also her stuff for school.

Time Management - I became more conscious on spending time with her since her body clock finally got corrected during the first week of school.  She now takes a nap after school, goes for play in the afternoon at the playground and sleeps early by 8 or 9.  That's good for her, but I don't get to spend our late night playtime sessions anymore decreasing our bonding moments.  So every weekday, I made sure to have a quick play time in the morning before she takes a bath.

Patience - Truly, this made me think on how my mom and dad became super patient with me when I was a toddler then.  We can never really repay the hardships that our parents endure to raise us as good and oving adults.  What we can always do is to pay forward these little acts of kindness even if our kids are uncooperative.  For Champee, it was a struggle to have her setup for breakfast and bath time.  It was really time consuming, but then again, what I observe is that there's really no other way to convince a toddler but to show that you understand where she's coming from.  Then you act, then you reason, and then repeat until you can get her buy in.  

Doing shortcuts and losing one's temper won't really get you anywhere as what happened to us when we got late last Friday.  Sometimes as adults, I realized that the easy way out was to muscle our way in to let our child finish what should be done.  However, I discovered that there's always an underlying reason why our kids behave that way.  And scolding them, at the height of our emotions always lead to a negative result.  I think that we can only scold our kids if we are on a controlled temper so as to clear our minds of our goal to correct our baby rather than just be reactive of the rejection we got from our child.and totally miss out the opportunity of having him or her learn from him or her mistakes.

Sacrifice, Commitment and Love - As a dad of a preschooler, I realized that in order to be consistent on doing something for someone, it takes sacrifice and commitment that is deeply rooted on unconditional love.  I learned that as long as we made Champee feel loved, she always ends up doing the right things like for her school today, she got three smileys as she's the most behaved in her class despite being a little late today.

Beyond the First Day
During Champee's first day of class, her teacher requested us if she can call her Amanda (her real name is Amanda Claire)... and we said YES.  And guess what Amanda means?  It's "fit to be loved" 

Maybe as dads or moms, even if our kids didn't have a happy first day, first or second week of school, let's help our little Amanda's have the best childhood experience they can have, after all every child deserves to be loved.