children's day.... LYDIA

Today the girls' school celebrates Children's Day.  In China, that means every class puts on a little performance. Singing, dancing, recitation, that kind of a thing.  Lydia's was this morning, Julianna's is in the afternoon (in other words, I will spend most of my day running back and forth between school and home with various combinations of children in tow!)

I do enjoy these days, more every year as I get better at understanding the way this culture handles events like this.  The front yard of the school was all decked out for the big day.

Technically only one parent was allowed to attend each performance, but Matt and I tend to get a little special treatment and got permission to have both of us attend because we have multiple kids at the school :) [This 'special treatment because we are foreigners' thing tends to go both ways - there are times that I LOVE it, and times that I HATE it.  This is one of those times that I was grateful to be different.]

Although they did let Matt in, he did not get a seat!  Which worked out great since Isaac wasn't really planning on spending a lot of time sitting anyways :)  The two of them hung out in the back near the play ground equipment.

All the girls in Lydia's class wore huge pink hair bows. 

Lydia concentrated so hard...

.... it was a joy to watch.

(Proud mama with her little girl after the show)

Now the kids are all out in the courtyard.  Julianna is teaching Lydia the moves from her class' dance.  Lydia is teaching Julianna one of her songs ("the hippo wants to drink water, he washes his face".... not really sure why the song goes like that, but hey I didn't write it!)

The plan is to put Isaac down for a late nap and leave him here sleeping with our helper.  Not at all sure how that will go, but I'm hopeful he'll sleep long and hard and be ok when he wakes up and finds mommy gone.  (He knows that's the plan, but I'm not entirely sure he's going to be happy with it when he wakes up.)

Lydia will go back with me to watch Julianna's class this afternoon.  Fun times :)