The two kids officially went back to school on the 20th. Tuition was paid on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, and for the two of them it comes to almost 10,000 yuan for the semester, not counting all the other odds and ends.
This is my son's last semester in kindergarten. He is a bit too lively. On the first morning, when I dropped him at the school gate, there was no trace of nervousness—he was unusually excited. It was as if I could see what was going through his head: he would get to talk and play with his classmates again. At school, I usually get a few 'complaints' from his teacher each month. He doesn't concentrate well in class and likes to get distracted with classmates. After being called out, he can sit still for about ten minutes, and then he starts slacking off again 😂.
In September he will start primary school. We plan to apply using points—only my social insurance has full points—so the chances are not great. If he can't get into a public school, he will have to go to a private school nearby like his sister, and that also requires a lottery. Our household registration is in this city but in a different district. Under the rules, the only way to be guaranteed a public school place is to attend the school in the district where the registration is. But the whole family moved away more than thirty years ago, so going back just for school isn't realistic. We will just have to take it one step at a time.
On my daughter's first day back, she brought home new books. When I got home from work, she asked me to help her cover them. Every semester, the book-covering job falls to me, and this semester is no exception. My wife's hands are not exactly handy 😬, and I am the type who likes to fiddle with things, so covering books is no trouble for me. With a few years of practice, I had them done in no time. My daughter was very pleased with the result, and she told me that quite a few of her classmates' covers are uneven or not done at all. She was praising me 😊.
I just remembered a conversation between my son and my wife before the New Year that made everyone laugh. My wife had been coughing a lot for a while. One evening, when she saw our son playing with his toys, she asked him: 'If Mom coughed herself to death, what would you do?' He thought for a moment and answered: 'Then I'd find a place, dig a hole, and bury you...' 😂