PM gets in some practice as she counts the days
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern got in some practice holding a baby yesterday as she counts down to having her own child, due on June 17.
In line with plans to “stay a bit closer to the hospital”, Ardern opened a new $150,000 playground at Learning at the Point community kindergarten in Pt Chevalier, close to her new Mt Albert home.
She said she also hosted a “community morning tea” , 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.
She read the children a book,
by Miriam Smith, which she remembered reading in her own childhood. It was published in 1983, when Ardern turned 3.
“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.
“She’s a very social little girl,” her mum said. “A prime minister in training.”
The children gave Ardern gifts including a baby suit labelled “Pt Chev For Life”, a cup and plate labelled “Happy growing, from Learning at the Point Kindy”, and what the PM called “mama tights” which she expected to wear for long time.