A day to remember

Today was Graduation Day for the girl child. The culmination of years of early mornings, alarm clocks, hard slog and endless nagging from the girl child's mother to get her off to school on time. It hasn't been easy and it often hasn't been pleasant and NO-ONE is more relieved than I to finally shake off the dust of school days! If I look back to her earliest days of school, starting with nursery school, I can never remember a day when she leapt out of bed with enthusiasm and went willingly off to school. She, like her mother, is just simply NOT a morning person! It used to drive her two big brothers wild, they would be up and dressed and ready to rock and roll and I would still be trying to persuade her to get dressed, put her shoes on and MOVE.

Over the years I tried many different techniques from threats to bribery - mostly to little avail. I remember throwing her and her clothes in the car and threatening to drop her off at school in her pajamas if she wasn't dressed by the time we got there. As she got older I tried waking her up earlier, I tried setting all the clocks in the house ahead 15 minutes, I tried buying loud and obnoxious alarm clocks (we had a particularly good one that used to shout in Korean and get louder and louder until switched off!) and I tried promises of sweeties and fun outings after school. I have been doing this now for FOURTEEN long and weary years - you can see why I am jumping for joy and singing hallelujah! :)

So today as I sat and watched this lovely young person put one phase of her life behind her and take her first steps into a new and exciting future, I felt relieved but proud, very proud! Who knows what the future may hold - she is undecided on her next step in her further education so we are just taking some time out to enjoy lazy mother and daughter mornings as she curls up on my bed and discusses the options!

For the moment, we are content! :)

(photos to follow!)