There are many things that I am grateful for in my life but the one i am most grateful for, is having the chance to see Shean Wenn grow & to mould her.
Since she started kindergarten, I have been able to witness her character blossom and got to know her better, not through my eyes, but through the eyes of her teachers, her peers and some of the other parents (her friends' parents). I am always earnest to hear about her days from her account but what really made my days are the days when her teachers or some of the parents coming up to me to tell me certain things that Shean Wenn has done in kindy. For example, just the other day, D - a mom to a younger girl whom we knew from playgroup (her daughter goes to the other class in kindy, not the same class as SW) told me with a twinkle in her eyes how one morning, Shean Wenn came running up to her smiling and saying
"I really love your dress, it looks very good on you!". She said it totally made her day.
(Shean Wenn with her friends at the farm)
Anna, who was a parent from playgroup but has now become the co-ordinator of the playgroup constantly tells me how SW would always greet her & chat with her in the mornings when Anna comes in to set up her playgroup. She says the things SW says shows great understanding of things and SW is always smiley & positive. Anna says SW makes her laugh all the time.
I think it's small gestures like that about Shean Wenn that people notice. And I'm so grateful she seems to be a kind child, which was the reason I chose the name "Shan"/Shean (which means Kind in mandarin) for her.
Before I go on further (rather smugly), I must say i'm recording this down not just for posterity sake and definitely not being smug, afterall I can't give myself a pat in the back - she's not even a teenager or an adult yet, I'm recording this down because I feel grateful. Good parenting is crucial to a child's development but I also know I'm probably lucky to have such an "easy"(going) child. She is independent around the home, and would be able to find things to entertain herself with, she loves reading and drawing & writing but she also loves the outdoors.
Sometimes when I send her off at kindy or while picking her up, her peers would come up to me and say things like, "Shean Wenn's mommy.... today Shean Wenn made me a card!"
There were wonderful stories I heard from her teachers, and they all made me feel like I was part of her life in kindy. The Steiner Kindy also has a folder of each child, individually made of the things she did in school, some photos to show us their activities, it is like a visual progress report. I brought it home last week to show Meng. I really loved watching her grow, through the eyes of others. I'm grateful I can "see" her, from another perspective because often, as a stay-at-home-mom, we get so stressed with everyday life that we overlook the kinder things in our child, the positive character that they have. Sometimes it all gets lost in cleaning up, the shouting when she spilled her apple juice, then knocking off the sushi box with all the contents strewn across the newly-vacuumed & newly-mopped floor..
Here is a peek at her folder :
(I love how she uses leaves to stick to her artwork. Her teacher, who happens to be a prolific illustrator herself, tells me SW is very artistic as she always comes up with her own style, for example, she "developed" leaf rubbing (using crayon to colour the leaves and transferring that to paper by rubbing the leaf on the paper!)) Fascinating!
I noticed the teacher wrote down Meng's name on the paper, they don't know his name and rarely writes this so I figured SW must've told her teacher how so spell Meng's name. I'm always amazed at a child's memory.
Her teacher told me that day, she just decided to clean the class and took a cloth, wet it and went around cleaning every nook & corner. Hahaha..
(Above)These 2 photos are contributed by me. They asked the parents to capture some of their lives at home.
