First day at preschool

5th January 2011:

1. Our 10th year wedding anniversary
2. Madison's first day at Pat's Schoolhouse

10 years makes us sound like an old couple! But yes, it's really been 10 years since we've been married. It's weird though, doesn't feel like a single day has passed. Yes, even though we've got 2 kids!

We didn't really do anything special today, being a work day and all. Chris did present me with his gift though.. a beautiful sparkly diamond pendant from TIFFANY'S!!! Right up my alley. His gift? 2 kids!

Today I did take his mum to the spa though. I wanted to go to SpaBotanica at Sentosa resort but it was fully booked. So the next best was the Aramsa spa at Bishan Park. Am I glad we went there instead! It was really quite nice! I think the most important aspect of the spa experience is the staff and environment, and Aramsa spa scored on both counts. I invited Chai and HanTing along as well, so I had 2 couple suites booked. We opted to have the Aramsa touch massage.

It turned out to be 60 minutes of bliss! No wonder people do these things regularly! We had a nice cup of ginger tea to start, then a short foot soak before undressing for the actual massage. The masseurs were very professional and private. I actually fell asleep during the massage, even though parts of it were a little ?ticklish!

When the massage was done, we got to sit in the lounge and have more tea and biscuits. After that we went over to their cafe for a small bite before we all headed home. Even the cafe served pretty good food!

Madison had her first day at preschool today. This week is orientation week. Classes start at half time (11 am) and end at 1pm. She gets to be accompanied for this week. Madison was quite anxious and hesitant at the start, but towards the end she warmed up and for a moment didn't even want to go home! We were brought around the school for a tour, given a briefing on their daily activity. It's really quite good. She gets to do different things everyday, and there are 2 teachers to the 11 kids in the class. It's bilingual so 1 teacher in English and another in Mandarin. The music teacher is a different person and she conducts the sessions in a dedicated music room. Breakfast and lunch is provided, although breakfast is optional.

I'm just a little worried about drop off and pick up; would it be crowded and jammed full of cars? I guess I'll be finding out soon enough. I also have to work out the sequence of events; what time I actually want to drop Madison off, and then come back to Annika, or feed Annika first then drop Madison off?

Hopefully Madison will settle into her new school with as little tears as possible next week. It's a good bridge to primary school. I cannot imagine how kids who don't go to preschool cope with real school!