new adventures

Of all the girls, the one I've had the most emotions over going to school is Boo. 

My sensitive, nature loving, quirky, hobbit girl. 

She has been unsure about starting high school. It will be her first ever school experience. 

Boo is one of life's observers. She notices everything, holds back and gets involved only when she is really comfortable.

Yet one of her very favorite activities is Drama.  When she is on stage she has no fear, she dances, sings and acts her heart out.

She also attracts friends easily, even though she tries her very best to be a mysterious loner.

It's hard.
After seven years of homeschooling and being given responsibility over her own timetable, hair and clothing choices and all the time she needed to rest and play throughout the day as well as help me run errands, cook etc, it'll be a learning curve to give up that level of autonomy and responsibility.

As a Mama, my perspective on certain, rules, regulations, disciplinary measures, classroom layout, free time and the way younger people are treated differently by older people in the education system has changed much over these last years.
We've talked about the way things work and why. We have lots of teacher friends and she knows that teachers only want the best for their students and as far as the system goes, humanity usually trumps bureaucracy.

I've given her three pieces of advice. 

Be brave be kind and be yourself.

I hope they will be words of life to her during both the excitement and challenge new experiences bring.
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And, if things don't work out, she, we, us... will carve out another path through bracken and fern of ways yet untrod. After all, it's not like we haven't done it before.

We bought her uniform yesterday.
The other girls were at a friends house so it was just us three. Boo, Tani and I.

The woman at the clothes shop said she had gone to the same school Boo was going to.
While she wrapped up the Blazer, kilt, leotard, dance shoes and hockey boots she chatted with Boo and I noticed a seed of expectancy and excitement grow into a small upward curve upon her mouth.
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With her pocket money she bought a beautiful, hand bound notebook to journal the coming year in. Boo loves crisp white pages full of  possibility just as much as her Mama does.

We took her to lunch at a favourite local cafe and she told us about how she wants to work with wolves like Jim and Jamie Ducher, or set up camp in the rainforest to research and protect  endangered species.

Then we walked along the canal, now frog-green with pond-weed and dappled by a canopy of trees and romantisised the life of narrow-boaters, imagining evenings watching foxes, and mornings waking up to birdsong.

On the way home she said she was excited about her new adventure.