Preschool

Last week was my final week teaching at preschool here in Nanjing. It wasn't my favorite job as a teaching position, but it was fun to be somewhere that Peter could play and be with other kids and I could learn some Chinese. The kids were adorable and the other teachers were really nice. We had fun. 

Andy, Peter and Harry playing during break

My favorite, Lily.

A typical day at preschool looked a little like this:

- Welcome song: "Good morning, Good morning, to you, to you and to you. Good morning. Good morning. To you and to you." I had that one down pretty quickly. 

- Reciting of "Di Zi Gui": Each teacher child pair (yes, there is an adult per child always...amazing ratio), gets a little booklet with 4-7 Chinese characters on each page. The head teacher reads one page at a time and we repeat. The kids all get a shaker or clapper to shake/clap to the beat we read to, most of the time the kids just made lots of noise with them and the teachers repeated the words. Also, I didn't know this until moments ago when I looked it up, but we were reciting parts of a book about the Confucius beliefs on what it takes to be a good person and how one should carry themselves and interact with others. Interesting to me to learn what we were reciting every day. 

                Read more about it here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di_Zi_Gui 

- Reading The Tortoise and the Hare story- again, it was printed in little books for us. First we listen to it on a recording, then different people are chosen to be the rabbit or the turtle and to read their parts. We never got though the whole story. It would start and go to right before they started the race...which was strange, because the race is the whole point of the book. 

- Song and dance- this was my favorite part, I learned all the motions for the dances, but didn't always understand the songs. Peter's favorite one is about a fish. Sometimes he puts his hands together and says, "Dhish" which means he wants me to sing the fish song. I only know the first line, then I hum the rest. 

- Snack Time! Another favorite. The kids all go downstairs and wash their hands and then get their snacks that brought from home. They always had some kind of fruit and they would all share pieces with each other. Peter loved getting lots of different fruit each time. 

Lily and Peter eating plums.

- English Class: My turn to teach. We usually sang "Do As I'm Doing", then read a book, played Red Light Green Light or Duck, Duck, Goose, read another book, sang some songs or practiced shapes or colors, played animals or Simon Says, maybe read another book, then English class was over. 

- Peter and I say goodbye and go home.

Here are a handful of other pictures I took during class.

One day, I brought the Panda to class, since we were reading a book that had bears in it. Panda was a huge hit and the kids loved to cuddle it.

I'm pretty sure Lily would have sat there all day long if it meant she got to hold the panda.

The preschool is pretty structured. There isn't very much free play time, and when there is, it is still semi-directed. Here the kids are walking over the yellow stick bridge. 

Andy's face...pure joy.

Lily and Peter practicing their climbing skills.

Peter got up to the second rung and realized he didn't know what to do. Seconds after this picture, he looked at me with a slightly scared look and said, "Mama, mama!" 

My favorite part of free time, and least understood part, was this big yellow ball. For the most part, kids would just roll it back and forth or lean against it, like Lily is. But the teachers would take a kid, lay them on their stomach on the top of the ball and roll them back and forth on the ball. 

The first time they did this to Peter he screamed and writhed as though the ball was made of molten rock that was searing his skin instead of bouncy plastic. As time has passed, he has gotten used to is and doesn't mind, as long as there is something on the ground- like another ball- to distract him. 

Sheeren's turn to be rolled. The green thing next to the ball is something they put kids in and slowly spin them around. I don't know it's purpose either.

One of Peter's favorite things to do at the preschool is play on the Rody horse. I use it to tell that he has actually grown. When I started teaching at the school, his feet didn't touch the ground and he wobbled a lot. Now his feet touch enough that he can bounce himself up and down.

Lily is also a huge fan of the horses.

Of course, I couldn't get a picture of them smiling at the same time, so there are 2 pictures of just one of them smiling. 

They like to make the horses bump into each other. 

Lily is quite pleased with herself. Cute squish face.

There are more pictures of Lily than the other kids for 2 reasons. First, she is one of my favorites. If I ever have a daughter I'd love her to be like Lily. She is independent and brave. She does things her own way even if it means she falls down a little bit more. She loves to smile and laugh. Whenever I tell her to dance, she just moved her right shoulder up and down, nothing more. She is smart. She knows her shapes and body parts in English and knows some animals. If I teach her something, she remembers it. She likes to learn. She will point to something and say "Jigga (this)" and I tell her the name in English. The second reason Lily has so many pictures is because she loves Peter and is frequently by him. She loves to gently touch his hair and his arms. She loves his blond hair. She is adorable with him. I will miss her and the other kids. It has been fun being at this school and seeing a different part of China.

Please take a picture of me.

A few weeks ago, we went to the Confucius Temple. It's a great place for souvenir shopping, seeing cool Chinese looking things and getting your picture taken by strangers. I am fairly certain that the Chinese have more pictures of us as we do. 

It was a pretty successful trip. I found some things I'd been looking for and was able to bargain down on everything. My favorite bargaining was on a cashmere scarf I wasn't even interested in. The woman went from 250 rmb down to 50 rmb in minutes. I told her I would buy it for 30rmb when she told me the first price, thinking that would convince her I wasn't able/willing to buy it. But she just kept lowering the price, stopping at 50rmb. Finally I told her I had to ask my husband if I could spend 50. I walked up to Jonathan and said, "Tell me I can only spend 30rmb, tell her in Chinese I can only spend 30 and then leave, leave now." This woman was not about to leave the bargaining. She followed us out the store. I think she would have gone down to 30 if I'd have turned around. But I really didn't want the scarf, not my style. Looking back, I wish I'd bought it and given it as a gift. Oh well, maybe next time. Moral of the story is, don't get attached, be willing to walk away and then sometimes bargaining is golden.

Jonathan and Peter entertained the masses while I shopped. 

Everyone needs a picture with the waiguo baby.

This woman stopped us and asked if she could take a picture with the babies. Now her grand-baby has proof of his first encounter with a foreigner. I still think it's funny. They will look back on this picture, just as we will, and have no idea who the other people are, and only know the picture was taken because we are a novelty here.

Standing on the bridge, Chinese buildings in the background.

Same bridge.

Picture with the scholars.

As we were walking through the area, we came to this gate. We'd seen it many times before, but this time, I made Jonathan and Peter pose for a picture. After I took their picture, I thought, "You know what, this would make a great family photo." I told Jonathan and we did a quick scan of the crowd for someone who looked like they had a moment to spare and would know how to use a camera. We saw two women, and asked them if they would take our picture. They said, of course and took a few steps back to get a good angle. Within seconds of our little family posing together, we had gathered a crowd of Chinese who were taking our picture as well as Chinese who would just stand next to us as someone took their picture with us.  

We don't know this woman.

This woman is oblivious that there was a picture being taken, she just stopped there and started playing with Peter. 

This is the best picture that dear woman was able to get. Bless her. She kept looking at us, unsure of what to do since people kept getting in the way. It was quite frustrating for me. Jonathan told people over and over that we were trying to take a picture, but that didn't stop anyone. They would just come on up and stand with us so they could get their picture taken or they would just stop in front of the camera and stare at us. I wanted to scream, "Go away! Just stand over there for 10 seconds, then you can have your own picture!" But I didn't, because I represent a whole country over here and I don't want people to think I'm crazy. Finally we just took the camera from the woman and thanked her for trying and walked away. We found an area slightly less crowded and let Peter run around and explore. 

Before we left for the night, we tried once again. This time, we stood a little further back from the gate, and we got a picture without drawing a crowd. Not the best lighting, but at least it's just us.

Dragon on the wall.

Peter's best friend. He sees these statues all over and he will growl at them and if he's walking, he'll turn course and go straight for it. He loves these.

Overall, it was a fun night. We decided next time, we would have foreigners take our picture because then, maybe the Chinese wouldn't just jump in because they would think we were friends with the photo takers. Maybe our Chinese photographer was just seen as another person trying to capture the white people instead of someone trying to take a family picture for the white family. Never a dull moment when you leave the house.

Baby Gets What Baby Wants

There is something that happens here in China when we go out with Peter. People give him things. Sometimes it is because he expresses a momentary interest in an item. Sometimes they give him something because he is sad. And, sometimes Peter gets things because he is a cute white foreigner baby. 

There have been times when people's 'gifts' have saved my day. Like when the woman on the bus gave Peter an orange when he was throwing his best "I'm exhausted and I'm going to let everyone in the entire world know" fit. That orange was the best thing I'd see all day. Other times, it's super weird. Like the man on the metro who let Peter drink some of his smoothie....what?! No. Don't. That's gross. Then, there are other instances that I wish people would just not give him things because I don't want him to think he gets something just because he wants it...for example every mom at the park when Peter takes their kids toys and the moms tell their kids to give it to him. 

I started taking pictures of some of the things Peter has received...

This balloon. It belonged to a little girl, about 5-6 years old. Her parents insisted that she give it to Peter. I tried giving it back to them a number of times. He was done with it within a minute of getting it, but they were already gone. He's gotten other balloons on many occasions. 

Candy. It is ridiculous how many suckers and hard candy people give him. 

Crackers, or anything else that another kid is eating. But, if I try to give their kid food, they shake their heads and tell their kids not to take the food from the younger kid. 

Peter saw these flowers that a woman was holding on the metro.

She came over and let him destroy her bouquet. When we got off the metro, he had about 3-4 flowers in his hands and stroller seat.

Don't worry, Peter wasn't given this bear to keep. As soon as they let him play with it I was worried that it might come home with us. Luckily, the owner took it back when we got off the metro. 

Just last week he was given this beautiful lily. He wasn't sad because of the flower, he was sad because we made him go home. But the flower made our house smell nice.

Things not pictured include:

• bananas
• oranges
• french fries
• stuffed raccoon- a Chinese woman bought it in the store for him
• key chain cat
• key chain horse
• key chain cow- all of the key chains he spied on different times riding the metro and the owners took them off their bags and gave them to Peter. I tried giving them back, but the original owners wouldn't take them.
• water bottles
• a Christian pin with a cross on it
• tofu packs

So, having a cute baby has its perks. You just have to be ok with strangers holding your baby and taking pictures of you.