Applied knowledge: age 4

Sent Bella to the club deli by herself when she wanted a glass of milk; I just assumed she would run back and bring me the chit to sign...

Lion Dance

The real thing, at Bella's school, during Chinese New Year:

Papa and Vincent's interpretation:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

At Bella's school's St. Patrick's Day Party: I was a touch surprised that they weren't serving Guinness (which I wouldn't put past them, even if the party was at 10 am), and a bit puzzled by what mung beans had to do with the Irish, BUT needless to say, Bella was ENTHRALLED with the three dancing girls who came to perform. Mostly silent through the entire performance, she did manage to come out with a whispered, "Mama... they're so beautiful!"

Skyving off from nursery school

Bella and I skipped out on a school field trip to the Beijing Aquarium today. Mik's mildly trying to guilt trip me about it, because my only "real" reason for not going is the precipitous brink of INSANITY that only a 45-minute bus ride to one of the most-packed indoor destinations in Beijing could bring me to. With 35 children between the ages of 1 and 6.

Here's what we did instead [Click here for cool underwater video]. That, and practiced saying, "Barack Obama.... YEAH!"
I was already skeptical about the trip, since this is the same school that yesterday, called me at 8:30 am to invite me to a "camp show," where the offspring would be "singing and dancing" at 9:00 am THAT SAME DAY. Okay, well, that's what a flexible schedule is for, I guess, so I hung up, washed my face, changed into a clean muumuu, and headed down to the school.

It actually turned out that the "camp show" was going to be preceded by a one-hour performance of traditional Chinese music, which the kids used to dance, screech, run around, and generally work themselves up into a tizzy. Here's a video of Bella starting up the dancing. So, that part was great, though those performers may refuse to ever play for an audience of children again. By the time they had Bella's class of 2-year olds up on stage (almost 2 hrs after the whole thing had started) to perform "Twinkle twinkle" and "If you're happy and you know it" the little monsters had completely run out of steam. Bella was so lo-batt that even she (of "She's a Brick HOOOOUSE" dancing fame) refused to get on stage without me, and then just sat in my lap, panting and occasionally making the animal sounds in "Old MacDonald."

So I kind of had a feeling that today's field trip would go along the same migraine-inducing, mayhem-like lines. I just don't get how these people work with small children every day and not realize that THEY CAN'T SIT STILL FOR VERY LONG.