100 Days of Schhol

Today was the 100 Days of School celebration for Jin's Year 1 class — the day the kids wear their favourite pyjamas and bring their favourite soft toy to school.

Back on the first day of the Term 2 holidays, Jin came home with a t-shirt-shaped worksheet for the milestone: fill it with 100 of anything you like. The teacher said you didn't have to stick to the worksheet either — any collection of 100 things, photographed, would do. Jin chose face stickers, one for every school day so far, each one a small record of how that day actually felt. Some happy. Some sad. Some curious. Some a bit flat. A hundred tiny weather reports from her first year of school.

She was up early this morning, pulling on the fluffy pink pyjamas Dad had bought specially for the occasion, pink socks, pink slippers tucked into her school bag "just in case." Pink sneakers on, pink bunny under one arm, she set off down the footpath with a bounce in her step that said this was, without question, the best kind of school day.

By the time we got to her classroom, half the class was already there in dressing gowns and pyjamas, lounging around like it was a Saturday morning. The caregivers on drop-off duty looked just as pleased about it as the kids did.

Because it's a special day, lunch is sorted — ham and cheese pizza or plain cheese pizza from the school canteen, which means one less lunchbox for me to think about. I still packed her favourite "bee box" for morning tea: her favourite fruit, a string cheese, a small bag of popcorn. Somewhere between the pyjamas and the packing, Jin asked if she needed to bring a toothbrush — she'd decided that pyjama day at school must mean a sleepover, the way her sisters do it with their friends. Five years old, and convinced Pyjama Day was basically a slumber party with extra maths. I'm already looking forward to the grin she'll come home with this afternoon.