It's quite the challenge for a newbie to snow to get the kids out the door in the morning correctly attired for the day. On Jarvis' first day at school, I had no idea he'd need his snow pants, or that he really should show up to school wearing them as they have to play outside until the bell goes at 8.30! Soggy child? Hmm. Whoops. Then one day last week, Olive had removed her snow pants from her bag before we left the house - half hour drive back across town, another half hour back to preschool, to make the all important Snow Pants Delivery. My somewhat shambolic organisation methods were way easier when it didn't really matter if the kids even had shoes!
This morning he'd left his snow pants, and his mittens, in the classroom - we had to get a teacher to sneak us inside the building so he could hunt the whole lot down & get himself warm, it was about minus three outside so his trackpants weren't really going to cut it!
It's a little weird adjusting to the way school works here, in NZ I was in the school so much that I could wander in & out whenever I fancied, all the kids knew my name, and I could just rock into the staff room and make myself a cup of tea any old time. I'm going to fill in the police form you need to volunteer in class here, that way I can infiltrate & see what's going on in there for myself ;)
There are logistical matters with all of this clothing too - you can't wear a puffy jacket in a carseat, so the boot gets loaded up with an explosion of down and nylon, which children then get bundled into when we reach our destination. And as Olive and I are only at school for a few minutes, I think we spend longer putting on & taking off her warm stuff than we actually spend doing the drop off!
I think I need a whiteboard checklist at the front door to make sure everyone's got every single thing they need before we leave the building! And we need to get ready to leave about ten minutes before we need to go, as it takes that long to get it all together...
But, once they're all in their snowman costumes, these two crazy critters absolutely love the snow. Olive spends her whole day at preschool doing roly poleys down snowy hills, they think it's absolutely brilliant. Nice of Kelowna to put such a display on for us too, a couple of days after we arrived they had the biggest snowfall they'd had in 40 years!
So, we're here, Olive thinks she's actually turned into Queen Elsa, and Jarvis has found some buddies who enjoy Lego Ninjago as much as he does. Winning, I think?
xx K
