Thankful For Small Miracles

Maybe 'miracle' is a little over the top, but then again I am in China.  Everything is 'a little over the top'.

This morning when we got up, although Nicholas wasn't especially looking forward to going to school, he did manage to eat some breakfast including a banana and didn't start crying until we were in the kindergarten.  When I took him to his classroom there were a lot of parents outside the door when usually there aren't any by the time we get there.  We went in and the two Chinese teachers were trying to explain something to me.  They managed to get across that the parents were allowed to stay and watch the children today but couldn't give me any details.  Severine came in then and explained that I was allowed to stay from 8:30 - 11am and that she just found out about this change.  For the parents of children who travel on the bus, this means that they missed out today but luckily they will repeat this on the 15th of every month.

I went back out to the van and got Ryan and we joined in the class.  Some of the kids were doing drawings and coloring and Ryan jumped right into that.  Nicholas only started his once I helped by drawing a picture for  him to color.  From there they got all the kids to sit in a semi-circle for attendance and a couple songs.  One really neat thing I hadn't noticed is that there is a piano in the room and when it's time for the kids to move on to something else or clean up, one of the teachers will start playing it.  After attendance and a bathroom break we moved on to another station where there were puzzles, kaleidoscopes and wooden toys to play with.  Another interesting tidbit is that they call the children by number, not by name.  For the Michelin kids they will say the number and name, but not for the Chinese ones.  Nicholas is number 32, the last one to join the class so that is how many kids there are.  Severine always calls the children by name which I'm glad for.  I don't like the idea of calling children by a number.

Soon it was snack time which Nicholas has never accepted and after he told me why I understood.  When the lady comes around with the cookies for the kids she shoves them right in their mouths.  Today I just told Nick to close his mouth and hold out his hand.  He did and she handed him the cookie instead.  Ryan, who was sitting right beside Nick, didn't like her trying to do that either so I got him to hold out his hand too.  Another thing Nick didn't care for was the fact that the milk was warm, almost hot.  Despite this, today he drank it down quickly after dipping his cookie in it.  I told him I was so proud of him and he said, "I think I am giving it a chance".

After snack time there were more songs then off to another station.  The teacher calls out which children are supposed to go to what station but they seem to just let Nick go to wherever he wants.  I couldn't hear her over the noise so I didn't know where he was supposed to go either.  We looked at some books and Severine came by and told Nicholas how happy she was that he was getting along better.  He and Ryan took off to the back of the class to play while I sat and chatted with her and the two little French girls in the class.  I spoke in French and Severine was a little surprised that I knew as much as I did.  A one point she said something and I responded in Chinese by mistake.  She didn't care as she can speak Chinese as well as French and English.

Following this play time all the other parents started to leave and at least half the kids started crying.  What a racket!  It was only ten o'clock so I'm not sure why we were supposed to leave.  I had told Nicholas and Ryan both that we would be going out to play with them since their outside time is from 10:00-10:50.  At this point Nicholas started to cry too and I figured Ryan would as well since we weren't going to get to play on the nice equipment.  We left the teachers to look after all those crying kids and went to the bathroom.  When we came out I noticed that the parents in the other classes were going outside with their children so I don't know why we were sent away early.  I saw Nick's teacher coming with a few children so we decided to go out to the playground and wait for Nick there.  Ryan played for a while but Nick's class didn't show up so after a little while we left.  The place is really odd sometimes.  They have a guard who monitors who goes into the school and he knows me quite well now but the last day we were there, when I tried to go back in to take Nicholas to the bathroom, he and the other guard didn't want to let me in.  Luckily the shuttle bus hadn't left yet and Severine stopped to tell them that I just wanted to take him to pee.  It seems like once you have taken your kid to school in the morning, they don't want to let you back in for any reason.  As it is, when I go to pick Nick up in the afternoon I have to wait outside until Severine brings him and the other children out.  She said that this is because they don't want the other kids distracted by parents coming to pick up their kids but it sounds like a fluffy rule to me.  I'm the only Michelin parent that picks up a kid, the rest are able to go on the bus.

So, although Nicholas was still crying when I left he did feel comfortable enough to explore the classroom a little bit.  Another odd little tidbit I noticed is that when the Chinese kids have their parents there, they seem to become a little more insecure and want their mom's or dad's to do things that they normally do on their own.  Or perhaps the parents feel they need to look after their child as long as they are there, I'm not sure.  We had the opposite happen.  As long as I was there Nicholas was much more comfortable doing things on his own and even smiled a little bit.  At one point he said, "I'm having fun now".  If this was only a one time thing I wouldn't be so excited about it but since it will continue to happen once a month, it gives him something to look forward to and perhaps will make him a little more comfortable.  As an added bonus, if I keep taking Ryan with me he will start to get used to the school and perhaps can go a couple mornings a week next year.

Ryan and I went to the Rich Gate Mall after the fun at school and I was feeling pretty good about things.  I was hungry so we stopped at a Japanese hotpot restaurant for something to eat.  I've never had hotpot and I didn't today either.  I ended up ordering sushi, beef kabobs and a dish of rice with beef and onions.  I'd like to try the hotpot soon, perhaps when Ma gets here.  I'm not an expert on it, but for those of you who may not be familiar with hotpot at all, it's a kind of place where there is a big bowl in the middle of your table, sometimes with a burner, sometimes with coals (I think).  You order raw ingredients and when they are delivered to your table you add them to the pot to make a soup that everyone shares.  I'm not sure what you do when you don't like the other people's choices, I would think this could cause some hotpot altercations.

After a nice lunch we got a few groceries at YooHoo then came home for a while.  Aside from writing most of the blog and folding a couple loads of laundry, I didn't get much done.  I was tired but it was too late for a nap so Ryan and I just chilled out and read some books.  We went back to get Nicholas at 3:45 and I made a really big deal about how happy I was with the successful morning.  It was the truth, though.  I was pretty ecstatic.  We drove to Michelin to get Tim then back to the school where they dropped me off for a meeting with Severine.  The other kindergarten parents were there and she went over the schedule and some other details.  The best part of it, she did the entire thing in French.  I love that I am finally getting to use some of the language that I studied for seven years in school and a lot of it is coming back to me.  I understood a lot of what she said as long as it was quiet but as things got noisier I had a bit more of a difficult time.  I got the gist of everything though so it was good.

When I got home tonight Tim had supper ready and it was delicious.  The boys have gone to bed without much trouble and Nicholas is pleased since I read him extra stories tonight.  He is actually reading some of the words himself and feels pretty good about it.  Me too!  It surprised me last night when he seemed to be able to say the words by looking at them instead of the picture or from memory.  I told him that everyday I receive a good report about him from his teacher, or even if he tells me that he has tried playing, eating or peeing at school, I will read him extra stories that night.  He couldn't wipe the smile off his face after I told him that one.

Now we are all excited because Nanny leaves tomorrow for her voyage across the world to the Far East/Middle Kingdom/Zhong guo/China.  Hooray for Sunday!