Getting in some practice: Jacinda Ardern and baby Violet Crompton at Learning in the Point Kindergarten, Pt Chevalier. Photo / Doug Sherring
Getting in some practice: Jacinda Ardern and baby Violet Crompton at Learning in the Point Kindergarten, Pt Chevalier. Photo / Doug Sherring
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern got in some practice holding a baby todayas she counts down to having her own baby, due on June 17.
In line with plans announced yesterdayto "stay a bit closer to the hospital", Ardern opened a new $150,000 playground at Learning at the Pointcommunity kindergarten in Pt Chevalier, close to her new Mt Albert home.
She said she also hosted a "community morning tea" this morning, including the Plunket nurse who will help to look after her baby.
"It's one of the things I loved about the Pt Chevalier community [where she and partner Clarke Gayford lived until April], and continue to love about Mt Albert, the community, here is so strong," she said.
"It's a wonderful place to live and it will be a wonderful place for us to raise our family."
She read the kindergarten children a book, Kimi and the Watermelon by Miriam Smith, which she remembered reading in her own childhood. It was published in 1983, when Ardern turned 3.
Jacinda Ardern reads "Kimi and the Watermelon" to children at Learning at the Point kindergarten. Photo / Doug Sherring
"When I was your age I had an older sister and she went to kindy first. I was so jealous," she told the children.
"She used to come home with little plaster cakes, do you still make those? They were made out of cardboard and a little bit of spaghetti, and I loved those spaghetti cakes and I was so desperate to go to kindy.
"So I think you are the luckiest tamariki, the luckiest children, to get to use this cool space."
Later she picked up baby Violet Crompton, who has just turned 1 and was there with her older sister Daisy, 3, and her parents Kate and Dale Crompton.
"She was just getting used to what it feels like to have a little person," Kate Crompton said.
Baby Violet kept smiling through all the attention and held out her hands to the Prime Minister.
"She's a very social little girl," her mum said. "A prime minister in training."
The children presented Ardern with gifts for her baby including a baby suit labelled "Pt Chev For Life", a cup and plate labelled "Happy growing, from Learning at the Point Kindy", and what Ardern called "mama tights".
"I'll be wearing those for a long time yet, they're so comfortable," she said.
Delphi Vaughan, 4, and other kindergarten children gave the Prime Minister a "Pt Chev For Life" baby suit. Photo / Doug Sherring
Head teacher Kristina Walkley gave her an enrolment form, warning her that the kindy had a long waiting list so she should get in early.
Ardern said Western Springs College also gave her an enrolment form when she visited yesterday, even though the baby won't be ready for college for about 13 years.
