Sofia's SG Farewell

During our last week Singapore, I was quite touched because I realized that Sofia made good friends in school despite our travelling schedule and studying at Brighton Montessori for only a year.

*Our travelling schedule would mean that Sofia would sometimes only go to school for a week or two, then she'd leave on 'holiday for four weeks', then be back for a week or two, then the cycle would start all over again. 

I first heard about her best friends in school when she celebrated her 4th birthday with an Angry Birds Rio Party, and her favorite Ninong Tim commented that even at her young age, Sofia instinctively knew how to pick the good looking classmate as her best friend because she said that Vedant was her best friend.

Sofia and her classmates celebrating her 4th birthday at school.

Sofia  (holding her best friend's hand) and the other big kids.

Sofia also has another close friend from Brighton, Raima. We always bump into Raima and her mom at at mall and they do an impromptu play-date for a few minutes most of the time when we see them. Sofia's mom would tell me that Raima would tell her that Sofia was her best friend at Brighton.

Sofia and Raima's favorite area in Great World City.

Hugging, because it was one of their last mall play-dates.

In the week we were leaving, I would attempt to pick-up Sofia earlier with a camera in hand so that I could take pictures of her and her friends because we were leaving. Vedant's nanny, and Vimi, Raima's mom both realized that it was our last week and the kids would miss each other so they were both arranging a farewell play-date with Sofia. We had already moved to Marina Bay Sands by then so I was glad when Vimi, Raima's mom, invited both Sofia and Vedant to swim at their place because it was hitting two birds (or friends) with one stone, and I didn't have to worry about where they were going to play.

I walked with the kids to Raima's place
because they went ahead  to get ready.

Sofia and Vedant were so excited.
HHWWPSSP (holding hands while walking pa-sway-sway-pa)!

All of them were water babies.
The other kids in the pool also wanted to play with them.

Vedant loved Sofia's water gun.

Raima jumping into the shallow end of the big pool.

Duck Play-date.

Sofia and the ducks.

The kids all in one place for a picture.

I was quite nervous with Sofia and the kick board because she's just learning to swim.

She's very happy not to use her water wings any more.

We had snacks by the pool.

The kids were all happy to snack on potato chips.

Raima.

Vedant.

Sofia.

Asking me to check if they still had pruney fingers.

We were all supposed to go after snacking, but the kids wanted to play some more in the playground.

Peek a Boo.

Is this a slide?

Wall climbing.

See-saw. 1 nanny (not in pic) = 2 kids.

Zig zag slide.

Sofia loved it.

I was really touched. The funny thing was, it was only in the week that we were leaving did I formally introduce myself to Vimi, Raima's mom, who I would smile at and chat with whenever we picked up kids and let them play together in the mall. We exchanged names and contact details, and I also emailed Vedant's mom, to drop me a line if they ever find themselves in Manila. I was glad my daughter had a farewell that she really enjoyed.

Teacher Shannon was telling me that all three kids kept telling her about the playdate... but nobody mentioned to her that it was Sofia's last day (ooops, delinquent mom! but i swear, i told the office - so i could get my deposit back! hahaha). She even got teary-eyed when Sofia was saying goodbye.

Sofia and Teacher Shannon.
October 2011

Sofia has adjusted quite well to moving back because we enrolled her in a new school, even before we moved back for good. She is just currently suffering from jetlag because her Singapore school was in the 130-500pm timezone and her manila school is from 800-1130am. That's almost a 6 hour time difference. We need to pretend that she lives in Samoa or something like that instead. Hahaha. Just Saying.