All About the Girls

I am feeling the need to gush.

When Dave and I made the decision to undertake this half-way-around-the-globe move, we considered the girls every step of the way. We wondered and worried how they would adjust to this new world. Although culturally very similar to Canada, which played a part in our decision making process, New Zealand is not home. It is away from everything familiar – family, school, friends, programs, food, everything that fills their big lives – and nights were lost stressing over what their first days would be like, how school might go, would they make friends, would they love it.

In those weeks before the decision was made, I wrote countless lists of pros and cons, yays and nays and solicited as many opinions and as much advice as I could. My favorite bit of advice was when a good friend asked me “Are you really NOT going to move because your kids might meet a mean girl?” and that summed it up. In all of the possible complexity of the matter – this was at the crux. I wanted to incubate the kids from girl shit. Both kids had made smashing, deep friendships at school in Toronto and I wanted to freeze that.

Fast forward three months and I am so proud of Emma and Coco for embracing this half-cooked idea to move to New Zealand and for jumping in with both feet. They were able to shake the first day nerves and within a week, were comfortable and relaxed going to school. They have settled in so easily – making friends and just getting on with it.

Emma basically went from Grade 5 to Year 7, skipping a year and a half academically, going from one teacher to five and is excelling. She sat her very first exams a couple of weeks ago – real exams, written in a separate room, timed. And the results had her teachers surprised and delighted considering she only knew 1/3 of the lessons.

And Coco is “gorgeous,” says her homeroom teacher, Mrs Edwards. “Like she has always been here.” She contributes and participates, has made fast and easy friends with everyone and is managing the curriculum extremely well.

More than all of this, the girls are happy. Sigh. Happy.

So thank you, Rindy for the advice that gave me just the right amount of brave to jump and take my gorgeous family with me. xo