5) HOW'S MYA COPING?

I can 't wait to pick her up from school (literally!)

The prelude to this photo was that she was climbing the monkey-bars whilst holding her book in one hand and reading. Half way across, she let go and fell to the ground, then lay there reading the book as if nothing had happened! Waiting to give us a laugh.


Everyone’s been asking "How’s Mya doing? How’s she settling in Australia ? How’s she coping at school?"

Well, I’m really happy to say that this move has been the easiest. She went to her new school without trepidation, and has mixed in really well. The school is quite small (120 pupils) and has a really nice family feel to it.

Everyone is friendly towards newcomers. Mya already has two boyfriends, Matthew and Andrew (twin Chinese boys) –and she wants to marry them both. (Sorry to Ryan in Singapore - you've been flicked.) Roll on adolescence!

We were spying on her from afar one day as we were going to pick her up at the end of the school day. There her class was lining up to go from the art room back into her classroom to prepare for dismissal. Mya grabbed Matthew’s hand and they walked up the footpath (or was that the aisle?). It was so cute to see. She then planted a kiss on him, and at home time she gave him a hug.

Mya is doing really well behaviour-wise too. Is it that she senses this is not the time to play up, or has she grown out of that stage? Whatever the reason, she’s much easier to manage at the moment – even with Dad’s absence. I miss her and can’t wait to pick her up from school.

We are also getting a lot more "fun homework" done. The other day I taught her some fractions using a huge ANZAC biscuit. And because she did so well, she got to eat the whole thing for breakfast – hah! Mya was going to school straight after breakfast, so the teacher had the sugar-hyper child, not me. But what a reward that was for such a fantastic first attempt and effort with fractions .

She got the concept of quarters, halves and three quarters straight away – well she had such an incentive didn’t she. As you can see from the photo she actually wrote the fractions down too. When she showed it to her teacher, her teacher said “Oh you’ve been doing "hard maths” and Mya replied, “No we’ve been doing yummy biscuits!” I think that was a really good introduction to how much FUN maths can be!

She’s giving her YAYA lots of hugs and kisses, and on Friday (Fish and Chip and Video night in the Rowlands family, because she doesn’t get to watch any TV during the week), Mya sat on the couch with her loving grandma and they watched the Sound of Music together. It was a picture.