Showtime!

The end of the school year is rapidly approaching. I still find it hard to get my head around the school year ending in the middle of the calendar year – I don’t think it will ever feel right to me! Moving to the States is going to give me many more opportunities to get used to it 🙂

Every year the kindergarten children put on a summer show and today was the big performance. Their show was based on this story about a leopard missing his mummy who has gone to look for food. The other animals try to help by giving him cuddles but none of them feel right. It’s only when he is reunited with his mother that he gets the special cuddle he is so desperately seeking.

The school gym had been transformed into a jungle.

Both girls had been very secretive about the performance. If Edie tried to sing any of the songs at home she was swiftly silenced by her older sister. All I knew is that Edie was a bear, Olive was the Mummy leopard and, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to make  any costumes!

Here come the bears…

Mummy leopard and her babies – she’d had a few more since the book was published!

The babies get ready to go and find Mummy.

The snakes were too slimy to give good cuddles.

Look! There’s Mummy over behind the crocodiles. Their cuddles were too snappy.

Olive’s classmates made great monkeys but alas, their cuddles didn’t cut the mustard either.

Reunited at last – and then all the children ran to their mums and cuddled them! Serious need for tissues 🙂

One fierce mother!

It was lovely. When I asked the girls later what their favourite part had been, Edie answered “all of it!” and Olive declared that she had loved being in front of such a big audience.

My favourite bits xxx

I have to admit to feeling sadness whilst I watched. It was the same sadness I felt at the Garden Party over the weekend. The realisation that we are leaving such a lovely school community, such wonderful teachers and friends, has really hit me. It’s good to be sad though. It means that we are leaving behind something of great value. And it’s also what goes hand in hand with change. So I’m okay with some sadness – here’s to the many happy moments awaiting us.

I have an overwhelming sense of homesickness today. Getting ready to leave our home in Antwerp has led to me thinking of New Zealand a great deal. But that’s okay too…

how could you not be a bit homesick for this 🙂

Lots of love to you all from the leopard, the bear and the kiwi xxx